The Sun
by Sapphire Smoke
Summary: "It's like… when you look at the sun too long, and then you can't see anything else? I can't see anything else when you're around, and I don't… I don't even think I want to." •Fang/Vanille• PREQUEL TO 'THE ARRANGEMENT'
1. I

**Title:** The Sun  
 **Author:** Sapphire Smoke  
 **Beta:** BellaRei713  
 **Fandom:** Final Fantasy XIII  
 **Rating:** M  
 **Pairing(s):** Fang/Vanille  
 **Timeline:** Pre _Final Fantasy XIII  
_ **Prequel To:** "The Arrangement," although can easily be read as a standalone fic.  
 **Warning(s):** Underage  
 **Summary:** "It's like… when you look at the sun too long, and then you can't see anything else? I can't see anything else when you're around, and I don't… I don't even think I want to."  
 **A/N:** This is more of a canon divergence, as according to _Episode Zero_ Fang and Vanille were both orphans that were basically just raised to become l'Cie as apparently kids without a family 'didn't have much use outside of that' (Rude, much? Those priests were dicks, lol). I wanted to make up my own backstory though, as that sounded much more fun, so this is more of an AU than anything else I suppose. Just forewarning you all in case you came in here with different expectations, lol. Also this was supposed to be a one shot but the word count got out of control, so here we are. _Again._ I don't know why I try anymore, haha. It's (looking to be, at least) eight parts total though, and I'll try to update twice a week.

* * *

 **I.**

When Fang was five years old, she met a girl.

This girl couldn't have been more than three at the time, with these big green eyes and hair the color of fire. Adorned in bright colors and an infectious smile, the girl drew attention from everyone the second she set foot on their soil, the townspeople cooing at her like she was one of the most adorable things they had ever seen. Fang, however, could easily see her for what she really was though: a thief. A thief that had stolen her favorite doll, no less; the doll her father had given her when she was born.

One of its eyes was missing and some of the stitching was starting to unravel on its right side, but that doll was Fang's most prized possession. One of her only possessions, in fact, as not many in Oerba had personal belongings; most everything was shared between the people. But that doll… that doll was _hers,_ and hers alone. And that… that tiny girl, with her stick-like arms and button nose, just swooped right in and… and _stole_ it.

So Fang had approached her in the square and told her, "That's _mine_ ," her small hand outstretched to receive it. But she didn't. The girl just looked up at her, sitting in the middle of the square with her legs outstretched to either side as she continued to make it dance for her. She wasn't even _playing_ with it right, and Fang glared at her.

"Nah ah, I found it," the girl had told her as she held the doll close to her chest, refusing to give it up. Her voice was high and squeaky, and Fang briefly remembered that she reminded her of a microchu; if microchus could talk, that was. "S'mine now."

Fang tried to swipe it from her then, but the girl threw an absolute tantrum after it had left her arms, and thus began an intense screaming match between the two children that, of course, eventually garnered the rest of the village's attention. Who did this girl think she was, that she could just come to a new place and take what she wanted from them? Generally, Fang didn't have a problem with strangers; but _her_ … her she had a problem with. Which made it that much worse when one of their elders, who had been speaking to the girl's mum at the time, just smiled and said, "I know exactly where to put you."

And that's how Fang ended up sharing her bedroom with her worst enemy.

Of course, at five years old, everything was that dramatic; she didn't like the child, so of course the girl was now the absolute bane of her existence. The elders however, they were big on harmony within the community, and thus found the best way to go about that was by placing people who didn't like one another in close quarters. In the end, no one wanted an uncomfortable living situation, and so they learned to adapt in order to live a more stress-free life. This process could take weeks or it could take years, and Fang was on the latter end of that, as she swore the child purposely did things to antagonize her.

That child, she learned not long after their first fight, was named Dia Vanille. _Oerba_ Dia Vanille as she was now, as war in the southern part of Gran Pulse had caused Vanille and her mother Nymira to flee their home village, forcing them to relocate to Oerba, where it was safe. They were welcomed by most everyone save Fang, who vowed to throw things at the girl's head every night they shared a room until she left her in peace. Unfortunately, she hadn't counted on her mother not being a fan of this plan, and after Vanille started crying like a little baby about Fang being mean to her, her mother screamed at her so much that it was _Fang_ who then dissolved into tears, furious and upset that she was the one being scolded when Vanille had been the one who started it.

If the stupid girl had just left her doll alone, none of this would have ever happened.

Vanille didn't just stop at her doll though; she helped herself to nearly all of Fang's possessions, including her clothes, which her tiny body just swam in. One time, she even had the audacity to sleep in Fang's bed, which caused the brunette to stomp out of the bedroom in a huff, deciding she would rather sleep on the floor in the common areas than get that girl's… _stranger stink_ all over her. But not before she placed a board underneath the door handle of their bedroom, effectively locking Vanille inside in retaliation which caused the girl to scream bloody murder when she found she couldn't get out the next morning.

She actually got a lashing for that one, but it was worth it. Vanille never slept in her bed uninvited again.

It wasn't fair though; Vanille did things that made her angry, and yet because she was younger she was allowed to get away with it, and _Fang_ was the one in trouble instead. Her mother even tried to explain away the girl's behavior once with, "She looks up to you, Fang; you should be a little nicer," which of course a seven year old Fang scoffed at, because she was certain Vanille only followed her around to be annoying. She never listened when she told her to stop doing something, after all; Vanille was still helping herself to her things years later and Fang was getting reprimanded for not sharing.

Which was stupid, if you asked her, because maybe if Vanille had bothered to _ask_ first, then she wouldn't mind sharing. She wasn't completely terrible after all, but Vanille never asked; she just took. She always took things like they were her own, and that infuriated Fang, because that wasn't the way of things. Just because Vanille was young and cute, didn't mean that she should get a free pass to do whatever she wanted.

And yet even still, as the years wore on, nothing changed. Vanille still thought herself privy to everything around her, including Fang's personal space.

Fang whipped around as she heard something behind her snap, nearly taking the girl's head off with her make-shift spear that she had crafted earlier that day from the branch of a fallen tree. Vanille's eyes went wide and she squeaked in surprise, which of course caused the small creature that Fang was trying to slay to scamper off. Sighing heavily in annoyance, Fang dropped her arm and demand, "What're ya doing out here? You know you're too young to leave the village by yourself."

So was she, technically, but Fang wasn't about to let that stop her; she was just two years shy – that was close enough.

"But I'm with you," Vanille reasoned, shooting her an innocent smile as she rocked back on her heels. She was just a smidge past six years old now, although she still looked about four; five if you gave her some credit. She was very small, and apparently that attributed to her adorableness that everyone outside of Fang seemed to see. "And you'll protect me; won't you, Fang?"

"Not bloody likely," Fang mumbled under her breath, just wanting to be left in peace. However, the phrase she had used made Vanille gasp and point at her, ever the dramatic.

"You said a bad word!"

"Shut it, will ya?" Fang snapped, shooting her a glare. If she lagged on her, so help her. "I'm allowed to say whatever I want so long as my Mum's not around, and do you see her?"

Vanille actually took the time to look around, before her gaze landed on Fang and she shook her head, her pigtails practically whacking her in the face.

"Right. So just… go away, yeah?" Fang requested, actually shooing her with her hands since Vanille never really seemed to take the hint when actual words were involved. "I'm tryin' to do something and you're messin' me up."

Vanille's bottom lip got trapped between her teeth, her expression washing over with fear and doubt as she tugged anxiously on the bracelets around her wrist. "But… but what if something tries to eat me on the way back?"

"Trust me, nothing's gonna want you; you're too skinny."

But Vanille just looked up at her with her big green eyes that were beginning to shimmer and, _crud,_ if Fang just left her there and she actually did manage to get attacked by something, her parents would… well, they'd probably kill her, to be honest; her Mum especially, who had become really close to Nymira ever since the Dia's move into their home. Lelani – her Mum – she looked at Vanille like she was a second child to her and, honestly, that was another reason why Fang didn't like the girl, but regardless.

In the end, she knew she couldn't just leave her there. With how small Vanille was anyway, it was a miracle she didn't just break a bone every time she tripped and fell down.

" _Fine,"_ Fang huffed, grabbing the girl's hand in her own as she led her further out into the Steppe. "Stay close by, and _don't_ move or speak when I tell you to hush. Just be… I dunno, pretend you're a tree or somethin', yeah? Can you do that?" Vanille nodded enthusiastically and Fang prompted, "Lemme see."

Vanille grinned at her as she let go of her hand, apparently proud to be able to show Fang how great of a tree she could really be as she held up her hands like branches and then stayed absolutely still. "Right, okay," Fang responded, placing her hands on Vanille's arms and guiding them back down to her sides. "Like that, only don't start wavin' your arms about, yeah? Just leave 'em down here, otherwise you're gonna scare things off."

"What things?" Vanille asked curiously, peering up at her. "What are you doing?"

Fang grinned, and now it was her turn to be proud of herself. "I'm huntin'." Because that's what she decided she wanted to be when she grew up; a Huntress. But Vanille just looked at her like she was being foolish, which of course darkened Fang's mood considerably.

"Girl's can't hunt," she told her, which made Fang scoff. "Mum says we have more important jobs to do."

"You're not from here," Fang shot back as she crossed her arms over her chest, because even after three years, she still considered the girl to be a stranger. "You don't know."

Even though, on some level, she did. There wasn't a woman amongst the band of Hunters at the moment, and there hadn't been for quite some time. But that wasn't to say that it _never_ happened, and so Vanille was still wrong. Fang could still be whatever she wanted to be, she just had to practice hard at it; be faster, better, _stronger_ than all the boys. And she would be, so long as she didn't have a tag along every single time she tried.

At Fang's blatant rejection of her being included in their clan however, the corners of Vanille's lips turned down into a frown as she dipped her head and looked at her shoes. Something felt funny in Fang's gut then, which she would later in life identify as guilt, and she pursed her lips and scrunched up her nose as she looked at her, inwardly debating on maybe trying to be a little nicer so that the girl didn't burst into tears and run off to get eaten by a behemoth or something.

"…Just cause we're girls, doesn't mean we can't do what we want," Fang eventually told her, which caused Vanille to look up at her. Thankfully, she wasn't crying, but she had looked on the verge not too long ago.

"Could I hunt?" Vanille asked then, and the word 'no' was on the tip of Fang's tongue because honestly, the girl was practically a bag of bones, and a fairly clumsy one at that, but that worry that if she upset her Vanille would run off and get herself killed kept that word locked in the back of her throat. Instead, she opted to go a different route.

"Maybe. If you practice like me; get real good at it."

"Can I practice now?"

But Fang just shook her head. "You have to be bigger. When you grow some more you can, okay? Right now even a spriggan could eat you." Vanille pursed her lips, her brow crinkling as she seemed to consider Fang's words very seriously, before she ultimately nodded her head in recognition and said something Fang never thought she'd hear come out of the girl's mouth.

"Oh. Okay."

Vanille had actually listened to her, in what felt like the first time in her entire life. And it was so… simple; uncomplicated. It didn't make sense, and Fang just kind of stared at her for a long minute as she tried to distinguish if this was some kind of trick or not; which, in the end, she deemed ridiculous, because she doubted Vanille had enough brains in that head of hers in order to manipulate her. Still, she was wary of it, because it seemed too simple. Did all she really have to do in order to control her was just be _nicer?_

The sun was starting to set in the sky though, and Fang's attention diverted to that as she knew she only had less than an hour left before dark. A lot of nasty things hunted at night, but she didn't want to return to the village having failed, so she took Vanille's hand in hers again and led her towards the east in order to find something she could kill. "Okay, you have to be real quiet, yeah? And then I'll show you something cool. You wanna see something cool, right?"

Vanille nodded enthusiastically, her tiny hand tightening in her own as she allowed Fang to lead her out into the Steppe. They walked in silence for a little while until it was Vanille who finally stopped, noticing an alraune in the distance. She pointed, and it actually took a moment for _Fang_ to see it, as it was hidden amongst bushes. Maybe she'd make a decent hunter after all; she certainly had the eyesight for it, at the very least.

Fang almost complimented her on it, but she didn't want to be _too_ nice to the girl; she didn't want Vanille thinking she actually liked her or something. Right now, she was merely tolerating her. "Crouch down, okay?" she whispered to her, doing it herself so Vanille could mimic her. She did, and Fang pressed a finger to her lips, urging her to stay quiet.

Vanille looked excited as she watched Fang move slowly towards the creature, making careful effort to know exactly where she was stepping lest something snap under her weight and startle it. Gripping her make-shift spear in her hand, Fang slowly raised it above her shoulder, barely even daring to breathe. She had actually never killed anything before, but she had practiced targeting in the village regularly for the past few months. So long as it didn't _move;_ so long as it didn't know she was there, she might actually be able to do this.

But just as she let the spear loose, she accidentally put too much weight on one of her feet and something crunched beneath her form. The alraune moved, the spear only tearing into one of its leaves. It turned then, fully on the defensive, and Fang shouted, "Run!" to Vanille as she took off, afraid that the creature may retaliate and attack her. It might be small, and relatively one of the more weaker things on the Steppe, but so was she; she was only eight years old and had no proper combat training and she knew she needed get out of there before something bad happened.

But just as she reached Vanille she immediately felt weakened, the unexpected feeling bringing her to her knees as the creature used it's absorption on her. Vanille shrieked, "Fang!" before grasping her hands in her own, frantically trying to pull her to her feet despite her size not doing her any favors. Still, the brunette eventually got to her feet and took off running with Vanille, the two children practically screaming the whole way back as the alraune slithered after them.

But just as they got to the borders of Oerba, a man stood in her path and Fang stopped short, her heart lodging in her throat. Her father's spear left his hand, sailing through the air and embedding into the creature that was following them, and as his eyes turned to Fang, the brunette panicked and practically used Vanille as a human shield. Which was cowardly, and she knew that, but everyone adored Vanille; no one would ever hurt her. Therefore, she made an excellent barricade between her and that lashing she was no doubt about to get for wandering outside the village unattended.

"Inside," Orin demanded to the two children, who were stock still and practically grasping on to one another for dear life, afraid of the trouble they were no doubt about to be in. "Both of ya. _Now."_

The two girls didn't need to be told twice.

But instead of going straight home, her father grasped onto her bicep and pulled her over to a secluded area of the village so as not to be overheard as he demanded in a hissed whisper, "How many times have I told you not to go out there alone? You lookin' to get yourself _killed?_ " Orin looked more worried than angry though, and it made Fang feel awful because her father was this fierce tower of a man; he shouldn't be afraid of anything. "The wilds aren't some game you can play, kid; they're dangerous!"

"I just… I wanted to hunt," she told him in a small voice, unable to look him in the eye as Vanille grasped tightly onto her hand, practically pressing herself up against her back as she hid from Fang's father. "Like you."

Orin's eyes softened for a moment then, and as he knelt down, getting at eye level with his daughter, he gently placed his hands on both of her arms and asked, "Then why didn't you ask me for trainin'?"

"Cause no one trains their daughters," Fang mumbled, kicking a pebble dejectedly. "Not anymore. Not since Dol Yve." And that had been nearly a century ago.

"Dol Yve trained herself," Orin told her, which finally made Fang look at him. "No one believed she could do it, so she went out there and proved them wrong. But you don't have to do that, y'hear? You've got me, and I'll show you how to hunt if you want; you don't have to sneak around."

"But everyone will laugh at you…" Because no one went out of the way to train their daughters; no one. It was considered a waste of time and resources when they were innately weaker than men. Instead, if Hunters wanted to past their torch, they spent their time trying to bear sons.

"Then let 'em laugh," Orin responded strongly, looking at his daughter like she was the only thing that mattered in his life. And maybe she was; he and Fang's mum hadn't exactly been close lately, but things had been gently unraveling over the years instead of falling outright apart, and it took Fang a while to even realize that it was happening because it happened so gradually. "You think I wouldn't love to see my daughter become the first Huntress in nearly a century? Cause nothin' would make me prouder, kid; I promise ya that."

Fang's eyes welled up with tears then, overcome with the support she had from her father when she had expected she would have to do this all on her own. "Really?" she asked in a small voice, and Orin smiled at her.

"Really." Patting her gently on the arm, the man stood and told her, "Now c'mon; you know if you're not back in time for dinner your mum's gonna flip her lid. But hey," he stopped the two girl's then, looking at them seriously. "Don't tell your mothers that you were out, yeah? This'll just be our little secret; we don't wanna worry them."

"You want us to lie?" Fang asked, surprised. She was always taught that it was wrong to lie.

"Your mum will give ya a lashin' for it if she knew, and I think you learned your lesson well enough when that alraune came after ya. Just don't do it again, kid; you promise?" Fang nodded, thankful that her mother didn't have to know; she didn't want to be in anymore trouble. Orin turned to the smaller girl that was still practically attached to Fang's sari, and asked, "Ya think you can do that, 'Nille? Keep a secret for us?"

Vanille nodded, just looking happy to be included in something, even if it was something she was always taught was bad. "Okay!"

Orin smiled, ruffling the girl's hair before he turned, leading the two girls back to their house. But before they got there, Fang grasped onto her father's hand and asked tentatively, having been wondering about something, "…Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Do you and mum not like each other anymore?"

Orin's lips creased into a small frown then and he stopped, turning to face her. "Nah, kid; it's not… it's not like that. Me and your mum, we like each other well enough, but it's just not… like how it was. But we're tryin' okay? So don't worry your pretty little head about it; I'm not goin' anywhere."

And it ended up being true… but only in a sense. When Fang was nine, her father moved out of the house, and when she was ten her parents participated in the unjoining ritual in order to be able to move on from one another. Her father still stayed in Oerba, was only a few houses down from her, but her parents were separate people now, instead of one entity.

Fang walked in on her mother one day, tending to the burned flesh of her arm, where her joining tattoo had been seared off. It looked painful, and Fang's lips creased down in a frown as she asked why she did it if it hurt. And her mother just looked at her, patience in her tone as she explained to her that sometimes, physical pain hurt less than lying to one's self. Fang didn't understand it then, but she started to understand what she had meant a little more than a year later.

Fang had been over by the training square when she got her answer, her hands wrapped and her body dripping with sweat as she continued to beat mercilessly at one of the dummies. There was laughter from behind her every time one of her punches didn't quite land right, or her roundhouse kick didn't reach high enough to hit the dummy's makeshift head. It was a constant though whenever she trained without her father present, and Fang had learned to ignore it; if the boys only had the guts to laugh at her when her dad wasn't around, then they weren't worth her time. They were just weak. That's what her father had told her, and she believed them.

Fang may have only been eleven, but her father had been training her three times a week for the last two and a half years now. Her mother hadn't been too supportive about it, afraid that she was setting her sights too high and would just end up disappointed, but Fang was adamant about wanting to train with her father, and eventually she allowed it, as the passion in her daughter's voice couldn't go ignored. Some of the younger boys complained of course, as it was stupid for a _girl_ to train with them when she couldn't possibly keep up, but there was never any official decree that women couldn't train to become Hunters – it was apparently just very rare that one _wanted_ to – and so she was allowed to without much fuss.

Fang looked up from her task of perfecting her physical combat skills however, which her father stressed the importance of should she ever find herself caught without a weapon, when she heard Vanille shout, "Fang!" as she ran down the narrow street to the square. Fang's brow furrowed as she grasped the fabric around her knuckles with her teeth, unrolling it as the girl approached her.

Generally, Vanille wasn't as much of an annoyance to her as she used to be. She was still irritating at times yes, and it was still frustrating that she felt the need to follow Fang around like some kind of abandoned pet, but once Fang had learned how to get the girl to just _listen_ to her, she found her presence more bearable; at least now that she wasn't constantly trying to steal her things. Once Fang had sat her down and tried – with quite a lot of effort at the time, mind – to be a little nicer to her, she told Vanille that if she just _asked_ to use her stuff first, then she might let her and wouldn't end up getting mad about it.

And ever since then, Vanille had asked. Simple as that.

So Fang was nice to her now, for the most part. More patient, at the very least, because she now knew how to get Vanille to listen to her, and that was much better than fighting about stuff all the time.

"Fang, _Fang!"_ the girl continued to call out, out of breath as she nearly collided straight into her, pressing her hands into her chest in order to try to slow her momentum. Fang grasped her wrist but didn't actually move her from her body, more concerned with Vanille's behavior than her lack of personal space; she couldn't tell if the redhead was upset or excited, but apparently she had something very important to tell her.

"What? What happened?"

But Vanille just rose up on her tip toes, her breathing still uneven as she cupped her hands around her mouth, whispering a secret into Fang's ear. "I just saw your mum kiss _my_ mum!"

"What?!" Fang exclaimed, stepping back from her for a moment as she tried to make sense of that. Not that two women together (or two men, for that matter) was uncommon in Oerba, but she just… she didn't think her mum _liked_ Vanille's mum that way. They were friends, yeah, she saw that much; they always spent time together and stuff, but she assumed that was because they lived together. Was this why her mum didn't want to try to work things out with her dad though, because she liked _Nymira?_

Fang didn't have much time to even process how she felt about all that though, because suddenly a boy from across the square yelled, "Hey pipsqueak, little girls aren't allowed on the training grounds; go play with your dolls or somethin'!" He snickered then, which was joined in by a few of the younger boys that surrounded him.

Vanille let go of Fang though and turned around to glare at him. "Fang's a girl," she argued, to which the boy just snorted and responded to with, _"Barely."_

"Oi, piss off, Jex; yeah?" Fang shot back, not particularly in the mood to get harassed right now. At the moment, all she was concerned about was what the hell this would mean for her if it were true. What if they fell in love and got joined, and Vanille became her _sister?_ Not that it would change much, as they would still all live together, but still… she'd never get rid of her then. Which was probably a terrible thing to think, considering as the years went on, Fang really did start to see her mother's claim that 'Vanille looked up to her'. Still, she didn't want a shadow her entire life. She wanted to be her own person. She wanted to be free.

And Vanille was a bit like a chain on her ankle, to be quite honest. She was nine years old; she should have made her own friends by now, but she hadn't. All she did was follow Fang around. _Still._

It was probably supposed to be flattering or something, but Fang just found it exhausting.

"No, you know the rules! No one's supposed to be over here unless they're trainin', so get your little girlfriend out of here!" Jex shot back as he approached the two girls, apparently deciding that today was a good day to bully her now that he had two other boys behind him. What a giant jerk; Fang would punch him straight in the jaw if she wouldn't get a lashing for it. She didn't care about the other boys either, she'd hit them too. She hated them all anyway.

"Fang's my _sister_ , stupid; not my girlfriend!" Vanille shouted back to them, which made Fang exhale an exasperated breath because, _no_ , she was not. Not yet, anyway. Regardless.

"What, you don't got anythin' better to do than pick on a little _kid,_ Jex?" Fang shot back, eyeing him up as he and his little buddies approached them. "Stop being a little piss ant and just let her be, yeah? She's not botherin' anybody."

"Well I decided that she's botherin' _me,"_ Jex told her, getting right up in Fang's face. He had been antagonistic towards her ever since she had proven to be better than him in a few areas; aiming and tracking, to name a couple. Fang was hardly the top of the class herself, not yet anyway, but she was at least above Jex. And considering the kid was two years older and a _boy,_ Jex apparently thought he should be inherently better than her, and when he found out he wasn't, that bothered him. "So I want her outta here. You think you can do anything to stop me, _Beast?"_

It was his nickname for her recently, but her father told her to ignore it, that Jex was just jealous because she was more skilled than he was, and that he was only trying to paint her as something less than human to make himself feel better. It was hard to though, because sometimes she did feel like one; she didn't fit in with the girls, who thought she was weird for wanting to become a Huntress, and she didn't fit in with the boys, who resented her for her gender and her ambition. Still, it wasn't anything to hit him over. She had heard it before.

But then to make his point that Fang wouldn't dare do anything to stop him, Jex placed his hand on Vanille's chest, purposely shoving the girl into a heap on the ground as he stared straight at Fang and smirked viciously. Fang looked down at her in surprised horror, watching Vanille's eyes begin to mist over with tears and, Anima forgive her, she just _snapped._

She had tackled Jex to the ground before the boy even knew what was happening, her fist colliding with his face as she screamed, "Don't you bloody _touch_ her!" Because it was one thing when Jex picked on her, but Vanille didn't do anythingto him; he was just mean to her because she was Fang's housemate and that wasn't fair. Vanille was a complete cry baby; she couldn't stand up for herself!

Or, at least, she thought she couldn't.

Just as the two other boys tried to pull her off of Jex though, getting in some punches of their own as they ganged up on her, Vanille got to her feet and shrieked through her tears, _"Leave her alone!"_ before jumping on one of the boys' back and hitting him with something she found on the ground, which Fang would later learn was a freaking _rock._ The kid screamed in pain as he got off of Fang then, throwing Vanille off in the process as he held the side of his head, a little bit of blood trickling through his fingers. It was then though that the fight got the adults' attention, and they were all pulled off of one another fairly quickly.

Fang didn't get a lashing for fighting though; in fact her mother said that she was glad she stuck up for Vanille, although she would have preferred her to use her words instead. But that jerk _pushed_ her; clearly that warranted a physical retaliation, didn't it? Honestly, in the end it was Vanille who got screamed at more, as she had used a _weapon_ instead of just running to get an adult. But when Fang learned that she hit the kid with a rock just to get him off of her, she had to admit that it made her like her a little more.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all, to become Vanille's sister. There were worse people to be tied to, she supposed; and at least Vanille had her back in a fight, despite her size and clear disadvantage. That had to mean something.

Later that evening they were in their bedroom getting ready to go to sleep, Fang looked over at the girl who was situated on her bed on the other side of the room, her small fingers tracing the scrapes she had on her knees from their fight. "Hey," Fang mentioned softly, causing the girl to look over at her in question. "Thanks for… y'know, havin' my back; tryin' to get 'em off me and stuff. Know your mum's pissed at how you did it, but… you did good, yeah? So thanks."

"You're my sister," Vanille responded, apparently still stuck on that little concept. She said it though like it was obvious, like why she ran in to intercept the fight was something natural and expected. "They were hurting you. I didn't want them too."

"I'm not your sister," Fang tried to explain, because she didn't want the kid to build that up in her head when it might not even happen. "Our mums just kissed; _once,_ for all we know. They might not even get together, so don't count on it, yeah? You might end up disappointed."

But Vanille just shook her head at her. "You've always been my sister," she told her. "Maybe not for real, but it could be now. I like that. I like you."

That declaration both flattered her and made her feel guilty, mostly due to how she always treated Vanille. Maybe she had begun to tolerate her, but Fang had thought it was still obvious that she didn't really like her; at least, not until after what had just happened. Now though, she was starting to see that Vanille might not be so bad after all.

"—I'm sorry," Fang forced herself to say after a long moment's silence, knowing that she needed to. "For bein' mean to you a lot. I shouldn't be."

Vanille's brow creased as she looked at her, apparently confused by that concept. "You're not mean," she responded. "You're just a grumpy pants. You've always been that way though; I don't mind."

Something uncomfortable settled in Fang's gut then, because she really wasn't a grumpy person; she just had always been to _her_. And it made her sad that that was something Vanille just took in stride because she thought it was normal, and so she told her, "You should though; you should mind. People shouldn't treat you like that, Vanille; even if they are in a bad mood. And I'm… I'm sorry. You're actually not so bad, y'know?"

Vanille smiled at her then; this cute, tightlipped little gesture that made her eyes sparkle. "Hey, Fang?" she asked after a short moment, and after Fang made a little sound in acknowledgement, she asked, "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Fang's brow rose. "You wanna sleep with me?" she asked, repeating the question, because she didn't really understand it. "…Why?"

Vanille tugged on the hem of her shirt a little self-consciously and shrugged, pulling her knees to her chest. "Sometimes, when I sleep, I remember bad things," she told her softly. "From what I was little. Fire, my mum screaming. But you're—you're really strong, and when you're around I feel safe. Also, you smell really nice."

Fang went from feeling bad, to feeling flattered, to feeling weirded out all in the span of about ten seconds. "You smell me?" she asked, because that… wasn't exactly normal, was it?

"Your clothes," Vanille told her, apparently not understanding that Fang didn't know how to take that strange information. She smiled at her, rocking a little on her butt as she held her knees tight to her chest and continued, "And your pillow sometimes. You smell like home."

Despite herself, Fang felt herself smile at that. It was still weird, sure, but for some reason it made her feel good; as though despite how much of an outsider she felt like amongst the other kids, she still had her place among one of them regardless. So she scooted over in her bed and held up the covers to Vanille in offering, figuring that it wouldn't kill her to accommodate the girl, at least this once. She did hit someone with a rock for her, after all.

"Fine. Come on," she invited, and Vanille's expression lit up as she scrambled out of bed to clamber under the sheets with Fang, snuggling into her side. "But don't make a habit of it, yeah? I still like my space."

"I won't, I promise," she breathed, wrapping her tiny arms around Fang's torso as she rested her head in the crook of her neck. She was warm, her presence more comforting than uncomfortable, and as Vanille began to close her eyes to sleep, Fang gently rested her hand atop her head, pressed her lips against her hair, and realized that she wasn't the only one who smelled like home.

 **TBC…**


	2. II

**II.**

It did become a regular occurrence though, them sleeping together. Fang tried to tell herself that it was just something that had become a habit, as if you do something enough it was bound to become part of your normal routine, but if she were being honest it was… nice, to have someone who needed her. She still didn't have many friends, and thus she ended up growing an attachment to the one person who always wanted to be around her, no matter what.

She didn't think there was anything wrong with it though, until her mum pulled her aside a few years later and told her that it might be better if the two of them started sleeping in their own beds. "Why?" Fang had asked, because she didn't understand why it mattered.

But her mum just looked at her like she should know why and explained, "Because you're both getting too old for things like that, Fang. You're becoming a woman now, and Vanille is practically your sister; it's inappropriate."

Fang still didn't understand that though, because while she was fourteen now and was starting to look at both boys and girls a little differently than she used to, that didn't mean she looked at _her_ any differently. She was just… she was just _Vanille;_ it wasn't like that.

And besides, they still weren't sisters; not really. They weren't bound by blood nor marriage, as despite the fact that both her and Vanille's mum had been together for nearly three years now, they hadn't gotten joined. They didn't seem interested in doing that, apparently preferring things between them to be uncomplicated. Which, after seeing her mum and dad get separated, Fang understood; the unjoining process was not only complicated and involved, but painful as well. She doubted her mum had any interest in going through something like that again, should it not work out between herself and Nymira.

So why then, was she getting berated for sleeping next to Vanille, when they weren't even really tied to each other in that way? Yeah, most of the clan viewed them as sisters now due to their mothers' relationship and the fact that they had grown up together, but they still _weren't._ Not really, even though Vanille liked to pretend they were more often than not. Apparently, having a sister made her very happy, so Fang didn't even bother to correct her anymore most days.

Still, when Vanille found out they couldn't share a bed anymore, she cried. Which wasn't a new occurrence by any means – Vanille had always been something of a cry baby – but the information devastated her, and she curled up into a ball on her bed while Fang held her, hiccupping through her tears ever so often.

"It's not—it's not _fair…"_

"I know," Fang breathed, weaving her fingers through the girl's hair as she pressed her lips to her temple. She hated that their parents were making her upset like this; Vanille never did anything wrong by wanting to share her bed, she just liked it. It made her feel better. "But you wanted us to be sisters, yeah? This is what 'sisters' is, I guess…"

She still didn't understand it herself though, and hated that she was trying to defend it just to make Vanille accept that they couldn't do that anymore.

"Then I don't wanna be sisters anymore," Vanille sobbed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Fang bunched up the fabric of her sari though and dabbed her cheeks with it right afterwards, as all Vanille was doing was just spreading her tears around, not absorbing them. "I just want to be friends, Fang; friends can sleep together… can't they?"

"I don't know," Fang answered, because she honestly didn't know what was appropriate and what wasn't anymore when you finally start to become an adult. "This is such shit; I'm sorry. Mum just… doesn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about us, I guess."

Vanille sniffled, looking up at her. "What wrong idea?"

"I don't know, that we… like each other, or something."

Vanille looked confused at that, her brow furrowing as she wiped one of her last tears off of her cheek, at least seeming to calm down now. "But I do like you," she told her, apparently not having a clue what she really meant.

"Nah, I mean like… _like_ like me, yeah?"

"…Oh." Vanille paused for a second, chewing on her bottom lip before she looked back up at the brunette and asked, "Like how you like Galain?" She said it so casually, like that was something someone could just _say,_ and Fang's eyes went wide as she pulled away from her a little.

"I do _not_ like Galain."

Galain was one of the boys that she trained with, and about the only one who was ever nice to her. He was about a year older than her, and every time the other boys would pick on her for being a girl who wanted to hunt, he would always stand up for her and tell them to shut it, that maybe they should just stop sucking, if they were pissed about not being as good as a girl. No one really argued with him because he was one of the oldest who were training – most having already gone through the Trials when they were sixteen – and so for the most part, Fang stopped hearing people laugh behind her back whenever she trained. And it was… it was nice. She appreciated him for it.

And, okay, maybe sometimes when he talked to her she got this weird fluttering in the pit of her stomach, but that didn't mean that she wanted him to be her _boyfriend_.

Not that she would say no if he asked her out though. She just—she didn't really think it would ever happen, so she didn't let herself entertain the idea. But now she was and, alright, _maybe_ she did like him a little bit more than just a friend.

Maybe.

"Yes, you do. Every time he talks to you when you train, you go all red and then mess up what you're doing." Fang felt her cheek's flush at being blatantly called out about the way she felt, and Vanille pointed at her and said, looking a little amused at the reaction she had just caused, "Like that."

"Shut it," Fang shot back, pushing Vanille's hand away from her as the girl giggled. "You can't—you can't _tell_ anyone, Vanille; you bloody promise me!" Suddenly, she felt a bit like she was panicking, which was stupid, as panicking over some boy was really ridiculous, but she couldn't help it. Ugh, she hated growing up; it was making everything weird.

"Why not? He probably likes you too, y'know!"

Fang scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"But you're the prettiest girl in the whole clan!" Vanille insisted, her voice strong and assured, like she really believed that. But Fang just looked at her like she was being stupid and rolled her eyes. "Everyone always stares at you."

"Because they think I'm _weird,_ not because they think I'm pretty."

Vanille looked up at her then, this strange look on her face as she told her softly, "Well _I_ think you're pretty…" And Fang didn't know why, but Vanille's tone made her flush a little and her stomach to become a little tight as she looked away from her, not really understanding why just one simple sentence made her feel the same way she felt when Galain talked to her.

She regarded that feeling as a fluke though, and so Fang immediately dismissed the idea that she could ever look at Vanille as more than a friend, a sister, even. And for a while, it worked; a year passed and she never had that feeling when she was around Vanille again. At least, that was until her fifteenth birthday that, honestly, did not begin as well as she had hoped.

"What'dya see when you look at me?" Fang demanded to her housemate as she burst through their bedroom door, waving her hands over her form. Vanille looked up from the book she was reading, her head tilted to the side a bit as she appraised her.

"A flower."

"—What?" Because that wasn't exactly the answer she had been expecting; but then again, Vanille always did have a rather different way of looking at the world. Maybe she should have been clearer.

"The blue you're wearing; it reminds me of the flower that blooms at the turn of the season. It's pretty," Vanille told her with a little smile, and while Fang appreciated the compliment, that was so _not_ what she was on about right now.

Fang closed the door behind her before she began to approach her. "No, I mean… like when ya look at me; do I look like I like guys or girls?"

Vanille blinked, the question apparently confusing her. "I thought you liked both."

"I—I do, I think, but that's not the point, yeah? Just look at me," Fang tried, gesturing at herself rather erratically. "If you didn't know me, what would you think I liked?"

Vanille still looked a little perplexed by the question, and she stared at her for a long moment before she eventually put down her book and sat up, crossing her legs as she shrugged. "I dunno. I think I'd hope that you'd like girls, cause you're really pretty."

"But you'd _hope,_ right?" Fang asked, her voice getting a little strained the more worked up about this she got. "Cause you like girls. You wouldn't just _assume."_

"Fang… what happened?" Vanille asked, her brow creasing in concern at the way her friend was acting. She held out her hands to her, wiggling her fingers a bit in invitation and Fang sighed heavily, sitting on the bed next to her as she allowed Vanille to wrap her in her embrace.

"Nothin', it's stupid. Same shit, different day; just this time it bothered me."

"Tell me," Vanille coaxed, tangling their fingers together as she held them close to her body. Fang was silent for a long moment though, just looking at the walls as she felt the warmth of her friend's hands in her own.

Finally though, she exhaled a long breath. "Y'know how everyone's always on about how girls that wanna hunt aren't even _girls_ ; just guys born into the wrong body?" she asked, because that was the newest thing that was getting thrown at her by her classmates. And it wasn't like that didn't happen sometimes, but that just wasn't—it wasn't _her._ She was a woman; she knew that. She felt like one, no matter what anyone else seemed to think. "And y'know how people think I'm gonna end up takin' a wife because of it?"

"That's stupid," Vanille interrupted, looking at her like she shouldn't let something like that bother her. "Even if you were born in the wrong body, some boys like boys _too._ What they're saying doesn't even make sense."

"I know, but… it still doesn't happen as often as a man and woman, so—" Fang shook her head though, cutting herself off mid-sentence. Why was she defending them? Fuck them. "Anyway, so I know everyone's a bloody idiot and I generally just ignore 'em, but then today…"

She sighed again, this uncomfortable feeling pulling in the pit of her gut again. Vanille's brow creased even further and she squeezed her hands in her own. "What happened?" she asked, her voice full of concern and care and everything else that Fang never got from anyone else her own age. She should just lock herself in this room with Vanille and be done with it, honestly. She was only ever happy when she was around her anyway.

And that was especially true after what just happened.

"Galain, he… he gave me a birthday present," Fang tried to explain, her cheeks coloring again in embarrassment, although this time mostly due to her own foolishness. "And I was so bloody happy that he remembered, y'know? Like thought it meant somethin' or whatever, so I just… I kind of…"

Vanille's eyebrows rose expectantly, and Fang sighed in defeat.

"I kissed him."

Silence.

Fang looked at Vanille then, and she had this strange look on her face that she really couldn't decipher. But then it was gone as soon as it began, and Vanille allowed her gaze to flicker from the bed sheets, to the brunette's lips, and then finally her eyes. "And he… didn't kiss you back?" she asked softly, like she didn't understand how that couldn't happen.

"No, he—he _did,_ " Fang told her, because she didn't want her to get it wrong. "For a decent amount of time, y'know? And it was—it was nice. Thought it was kinda great, actually; been wantin' to do that for like a year now."

Vanille looked confused. "So then what's the problem?"

"Because _afterwards_ he was all…" Fang's voice turned into a mock-deep one as she summed up the gist of it with, "'Wow, thought for sure what everyone was sayin' about you was true; lucky for me that it isn't though, eh?' And then he bloody laughed, and like…" Fang released a sound of frustration as she went off on a tirade, "like screw him right up the arse, yeah? _Fuck._ I thought he was different; this is such complete and utter _shit."_

"Shh!" Vanille hissed at her, lightly hitting her arm, briefly taking Fang out of the conversation for a moment to focus on the issue that was immediately at hand. "Your mum's gonna give you a lashing if she hears you swearing like that!"

"Oh, like I bloody give a fu—" Fang tried, just utterly frustrated and feeling terrible about herself at the moment, but Vanille clambered on top of her as she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide in panic as she practically held her down in order for her to just _stop._

"Stop it," Vanille begged, her voice getting a little strained and upset as she looked at the girl she was atop of. "I don't want to see you get hurt; it makes me so upset when she does that to you, so just _stop—"_

Vanille looked about two seconds away from crying, and Fang felt all her fury evaporate at the sight as she placed her hand over Vanille's, guiding it away from her mouth as she held it tightly and assured her in a hushed tone with, "Okay, okay… I'll stop, yeah? Cross my heart." Vanille's bottom lip still trembled though, as whenever her friend got punished it had always been rather traumatizing for her, and Fang felt her heart clench in her chest at the sight as she gently cupped the girl's face. "Hey, _hey…_ it's okay. She didn't hear me; I'm not gonna get hurt."

"I just don't like it…" Vanille whispered, her voice tight with emotion. She might be thirteen, but sometimes she still seemed like such a small child; like a part of her just refused to age along with the rest of her. It was only bits and pieces though; it wasn't as though she was stunted. She was just… innocent, at times. More than most.

"…I know."

Vanille was silent for a moment, still not having moved off of her lap. And in the back of Fang's mind she knew she should have probably found that strange, but they had always been rather touchy with one another; at least recently.

Ever since they weren't allowed to sleep in the same bed anymore, they tried to find other ways to get the same level of comfort that they once had. It didn't really compare, but still… it helped a little. Somewhere along the way they had managed to get rather attached to one another, and it was only logical that they would find anyway they could to sate that need for closeness. They were… they were best mates now, after all; and it was weird to think about, considering how much Fang remembered disliking her at first but… it was what it was. Vanille was the person she was closest too, and she was glad to have her now.

"I'm sorry he was such a shithead," Vanille said softly after a while, and Fang felt the corners of her lips turn up into a smirk at her language.

"Thought you didn't want us swearin'."

"You can if you can be _quiet_ about it," Vanille responded, sounding a little exasperated with her since, apparently, that should have been obvious. Fang just chuckled though, but eventually it turned into a long sigh as she allowed her back to rest against the wall.

"Y'know what the worst part about it is?" she asked after a long moment's silence. "He liked it. He was—like he was bloody _glad_ that all the rumors were wrong; so if I wanted to, I could have had him, but…" Fang exhaled another long breath, shaking her head. "Is it stupid that I wanted him to have never believed what they said about me? But fuckin' everyone does though, y'know? So if I go by _that_ standard, then I'll probably never be able to kiss anyone ever again…"

"That's not true," Vanille said softly, gently playing with her friend's fingers as she sat astride her lap. "There's some people who don't believe what they say."

"Yeah, like who?" Fang responded disbelievingly, because she was fairly certain everyone their age believed the rumors about her.

"…Me."

Vanille seemed a little shy about that, but it didn't really register to Fang because she immediately dismissed that with, "Yeah, but it's not like _we're_ going to kiss each other." Because Vanille was different; she wasn't like the rest of them.

But maybe that was the girl's point.

"…Why not?"

Fang's eyes, which had previously been staring out the far window, suddenly snapped back to look at her. "What?" she asked, because she honesty hadn't thought she had heard Vanille correctly.

Vanille bit down gently on her bottom lip as their gaze connected, and she asked, "Why can't we kiss each other? We like each other, don't we?" The question sounded innocent enough, and so Fang took it as Vanille just not really knowing what she was talking about, because that seemed to make the most sense in this situation.

"Yeah, but it's—it's different," Fang tried to explain, stumbling over her words a little because she was suddenly feeling a little flustered by the shift in conversation. She hadn't been expecting it.

"But isn't that what you want?" Vanille asked softly, suddenly looking much shyer than Fang had ever seen before. It made her stomach do somersaults. "You wanted Galain to be different, but he wasn't. And it's… it's your _birthday_ ," she tried to rationalize. "And your first kiss, and it made you sad, and I don't… I don't want you to be sad, Fang. I want you to remember happy things today. Maybe kissing me would be happier for you, because I don't believe all those things people say about you. I'm different, like you said."

On the outside, it sounded completely logical; however, what Fang was feeling right now was far from it. She suddenly felt very nervous, which she had never in her life felt around Vanille. It wasn't a bad nervous though, it was just… this fluttering in the pit of her stomach; the same feeling that she had had nearly a year back when Vanille had told her that she was pretty. She had thought it was a fluke, but maybe it wasn't; maybe a small part of her saw Vanille much differently than she was probably supposed to. When that first happened though, Fang wasn't sure. But now, when she looked at the girl straddling her waist, she was suddenly struck by how beautiful she was, and that—well, that freaked her out a little, to be honest.

Because if you had asked her ten minutes ago if she would ever kiss Vanille, she probably would have laughed and said no. Now, she wasn't so sure.

So Fang tried to give her reasons for why they shouldn't, just to try to push away a feeling she didn't understand, but honestly, only one singular thought came to mind. "Van, our parents don't even want us sleeping in the same _bed;_ if they caught us kissing…"

"So then we won't get caught," Vanille rationalized, and damnit, she was looking at her with these wide eyes that Fang had always had trouble saying no to, grasping onto her hands and never breaking eye contact. "Please, Fang? Let me give you a good memory for your birthday. I just want you to be happy."

It was the last sentence that struck something in Fang, because she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if there was one person in this clan who would put her happiness above her own, it would be Vanille. Still, Fang broke eye contact and asked, "Have you ever even kissed anyone before?"

"Well… no," Vanille answered honestly, which was what Fang was expecting; she would have thought that the girl would've told her if she had. "But it doesn't look _hard_ or anything."

"No, I'm just—just _sayin'_ that maybe you shouldn't waste your first kiss on me. You could have it with your first girlfriend; or your first boyfriend, if you ever figure you liked them too."

Because right now, Vanille had only ever mentioned noticing girls; she was still young though, and that could change. And so could Fang's preferences, honestly; she might have noticed girls just as much as guys, but she had never kissed one before. What if she kissed Vanille and she didn't like it? What then? She didn't want to hurt her, if this thing ended up being entirely one-sided.

Whatever this thing even _was_ right now.

"But I…. want it to be you," Vanille responded softly, beginning to sound a little dejected because she was starting to interpret this blatant stalling as rejection. She looked down then, biting her bottom lip as she fiddled with her own fingers. "I've always wanted it to be with you…" The last sentence was barely above a whisper, but it rang loudly in Fang's ears as she sucked in a sharp breath.

Placing her fingers on her friend's chin, she gently coaxed the girl to look at her as she encouraged softly with, "Hey…" Vanille caught her gaze then, and something fierce and warm inhabited the pit of Fang's stomach. "Vanille, do you… do you like me?" The question was asked in a hushed whisper, as though a part of Fang might actually be afraid of the answer. What answer she was afraid of though; she wasn't sure. "Is that why you want to kiss me?"

Vanille blushed furiously, and that was really all the confirmation Fang needed, and yet she spoke regardless. "You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen," Vanille told her, sounding so terribly shy and nervous about what she was revealing to her. "And the strongest; even stronger than most of the boys. You make me feel happy, and… and safe. It's like… when you look at the sun too long, and then you can't see anything else? I can't see anything else when you're around, and I don't… I don't even think I want to."

Whatever Fang had been expecting from her, it definitely wasn't _that._ That… that made her not be able to breathe, not be able to think, because she never thought anyone would ever look at her that way, let alone Vanille. She knew the girl looked up to her because she was older, but she didn't think she looked at her as something… special; something worthwhile and better than all the rest. Fang had never felt very special, but with the way Vanille was looking at her, she was starting to feel that way now. It was hard to deny that you meant something to someone with that kind of look.

But Vanille broke eye contact again, her cheeks still tinted as red as her hair as her voice came out very small and meek. "Are you… are you angry with me?"

"What?" Fang asked, taken aback by the question so much that it made her voice come out a little breathy. _"No,"_ she told her strongly, because that wasn't even close to what she was feeling right now. "No, I just…" Fang's mind went a little blank then, and the only thing she could think to say was, "But I think our mothers would be if they… if _we…"_

But Vanille shook her head. "You don't have to be my girlfriend," she told her, wanting her to know that she wasn't asking for anything to change. "I know we can't. I didn't mean to tell you this stuff; I just… wanted to give you a nice kiss for your birthday, since the other one was crappy. I wanted you to have a nice memory, and maybe to give myself a nice memory too. But then you found me out so I didn't… I didn't want to lie."

"No, I…" Fang tried, but her voice came out a little scratchy and strained and she had to cough to clear it. "I wouldn't… want you to lie either." Because at least now she knew where she stood in the other girl's eyes, even though she wasn't exactly sure what to do with it.

Fang exhaled a small breath then, her gaze flickering down to Vanille's lips before she caught her eyes once more. "…Just one kiss, yeah?" she asked softly, thinking that maybe… maybe she could manage that. It would be confusing as hell, sure, make things between them a little weirder, especially because even if both of them ended up really liking it, they could never really _do_ anything about it. Their parents would never let them.

Still, Vanille thought she was the sun; she thought she was something special, and she obviously wanted her own first kiss to be as well, if she was adamant on wanting it with her. And Vanille had always been there for her, always had her back even when no one else did, and maybe… maybe it was time to give a little back. Maybe it was more important then, to make this memory special for _Vanille,_ rather than have it be about erasing her crap one with Galain.

Vanille nodded then, still looking incredibly shy, and Fang felt herself exhale a long breath before she moved, leaning in slowly before finally pressing her lips against hers. It wasn't anything more than chaste at first; just a lingering press of the lips as Vanille's eyes fluttered closed and Fang felt an incredible warmth spread through her chest. It was she who parted her lips first, and Vanille followed suit as her hand found Fang's once more, holding it tightly as a tiny sound of contentment left the back of her throat. It made Fang's hairs stand on end, but then suddenly it was over, Vanille pulling back a little, apparently not wanting to push her limits too far.

"Was that okay?" she asked softly, sounding unsure if she even did it right. But she… she definitely did it right. It was… a lot nicer than Fang ever thought a kiss would be, and she hadn't even had Vanille's tongue in her mouth yet.

'Yet' being the operative word in that sentence.

"Yeah," Fang breathed, finally opening her eyes to look at her. "Yeah, that was okay…" Their gaze connected then, and Fang wasn't really sure why, but she knew she needed more than just that one kiss. It just didn't feel like enough; not if this was the only one they were ever going to have. Vanille deserved better than that.

So Fang cupped the girl's face gently in her hand, pulling her in for another; and this time, when their lips parted, Fang took the opportunity to slide her tongue into her mouth, a gesture that made Vanille moan softly in the back of her throat. And, fuck, that _sound…_ it was like every part of Fang's body became alive, and she wrapped her arms around the girl's tiny waist, drawing her flush against her body as she kissed her with a little more passion, a little more feeling, as she tried to make sense of this sudden sensation of drowning on land.

 **TBC…**


	3. III

**Author's Note:  
** Alright, I know I said I'd update twice a week but I've decided to slow the update rate down to only once now since 90% of my free time lately has gone to video games, lol. I only have one chapter left to write (Chapter 8), but I'm unsure how long I'll end up procrastinating and so to avoid catching up to myself and leaving you guys waiting a longer period of time, I figured it's just easier to stagger the chapters a bit more. Once I finish it though, I'll bump them back up to twice again :)

* * *

 **III.**

It didn't stop.

It was supposed to be just one kiss but it wasn't; it was a lot of tiny stolen kisses when nobody was looking, or long make out sessions in their room when they knew their parents weren't home. Fang didn't mean to fall so far into this, because they both knew that it could never really amount to anything and that they would always have to hide it, but she couldn't stop. She loved kissing Vanille, she loved just _being_ with Vanille and it… it was wonderful and terrible at the same time, and Fang didn't know how to make sense of it.

But it was confusing, especially when they started to date other people. Vanille tried to tell her that it was different; that they were just special, and what they had with each other wasn't the same as what they had with anyone else. Still, Fang felt guilty; not because she felt like she was cheating on Vanille, considering the girl allowed her to be with other people, but because she was going behind her boyfriend's back. Something about that didn't feel right, like maybe it was okay if she was involved with more than one person, but everyone should be aware of the situation. But they wouldn't, and they couldn't be; what she did with Vanille was a secret indulgence, and no one could ever know. Their mothers would kill them.

Fang had started dating Galain, but it was only at Vanille's insistence once the boy had started apologizing profusely to her about ever having thought what anyone said about her was true, and began practically showering her with gifts to win her back. So Fang gave him a second chance and honestly, she was… she was _happy_ with him; but it just wasn't the same. She enjoyed being with him of course, but at the end of the day she was always more excited to go back home, and indulge in her secret obsession with Vanille.

Vanille began dating someone else a few months later as well, this girl Q'ara who was a year younger than the brunette. Q'ara used to watch Fang train all the time, apparently always having a secret dream of being a Huntress as well; unfortunately she had waited too long though, and her father wasn't willing to train her as Fang's had, and so she just always looked on with regret and envy as she watched Fang strive towards a dream that she couldn't have herself.

It was where Vanille started to get to know her, as she loved watching Fang train as well; at least now that she wasn't getting bullied for being around the training grounds, Jex having already gone through his Trials to become a Hunter. According to Galain though, who had just passed himself, Jex had only barely managed to scrape by, and it made Fang snort in amusement, because of course the prick of a boy would be bloody useless. And although the rule still stood that other people shouldn't be in the training square as it caused distractions, no one really said anything if people watched from a distance.

So that's where Vanille and Q'ara had begun to get to know one another, having already met at school, but never really speaking before then. The girl made Vanille smile and laugh, and Fang was happy for her; really, she was. But there was still a part of her that was envious that Q'ara could hold her hand and kiss her in public, when Fang had to do it behind closed doors. She was sure the same could be said for how Vanille felt about her and Galain though, so maybe it was ridiculous to obsess about it so much. They both had other people and they were happy, and maybe they should just be grateful that they both had something else that felt wonderful to indulge in when they got home, rather than look at all the things they were missing out on.

Fang was too busy watching them though that she landed on her arse in a heap, the wind temporarily being knocked out of her as her father stood over her, one eyebrow raised at the position she ended up in. "What'dya do wrong?" he asked her, refusing to hold out his hand to help her up until Fang told him exactly why she had failed.

Fang exhaled a long, defeated breath before she mumbled, "…Wasn't paying attention. Got distracted." Her voice was apologetic, because she knew better. This was like basic training crap, and she was far beyond that right now.

"And what's that gonna get you out there?"

"…Killed."

Orin held out his hand then, and Fang grasped it as she allowed her father to help her to her feet. "You got less than a year before you go through the Trials, Fang; you gotta be ready. You can't afford to fuck this up, y'hear? You get one chance at this; don't squander it."

"Yes, sir," she muttered, feeling ashamed of herself. She had worked too hard and too long for it to all come crumbling out from underneath her.

Orin glanced over to Vanille and Q'ara then, wanting to see what had distracted his daughter. "You don't like 'Nille's new girlfriend?" he asked, tossing Fang her lance, which she caught easily before twirling it in her hands.

"Nah, she's—she's alright, I guess," she stumbled as she began to circle her father, who had grabbed his own weapon. While being skilled in combat against another person wasn't necessarily a requirement, it would help her cause quite a bit; if the vipers in the sky ever invaded again, it would be the Hunters that would be called to defend their land, as they were the closest thing to warriors that Oerba had.

Many other settlements on Gran Pulse had their own armies, but Oerba was small and wasn't in need of such things. They were mostly protected by their neighboring clans anyhow, and they were already well-defended. Besides, Oerba's main purpose in the peace agreement was to hunt, to provide food for not just them, but for all of their neighbors; which was why they had so many, and why they were so revered in their clan. Without them, they wouldn't be protected by those they provided food for, and thus would be left defenseless to invasion from rival clans.

Orin smirked knowingly. "Jealous that you're not the one she follows around anymore?" He chose then to strike, and Fang barely got her lance up in time to block the blow, too stuck on the word jealous, because she took it as something else entirely.

"N-No, I have Galain; why would I be jealous?" she responded, hating how much her voice stumbled over the first word in that sentence, because it gave away more than she wanted to. Her cheeks flushed involuntarily, and she immediately berated herself in her head as her dad's eyebrows rose.

"Didn't mean jealous in that way, kid," he told her, but didn't move to strike a second time. Instead, he was just looking at her inquisitively as he asked carefully, "…Did you?"

Panic started to make Fang's chest tighten and her breathing shallow, and so instead she just dropped her lance and held up her hands in surrender. "Today's shit for this actually. I'm not feelin' well; probably why I'm gettin' so distracted. Can we just do this tomorrow?""

"Fang," Orin said seriously as his daughter tried to turn away from him. Fang swallowed and glanced back at him, twisting her palms together as she tried to brace herself for what was about to come, because her father wasn't stupid, and clearly she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings towards Vanille. But he didn't yell at her, didn't lecture; instead all he said was, "You know I won't tell your mum, yeah?"

Orin had always been far more understanding towards Fang than Lelani. He was much more free-spirited, not subscribing to the same ideals as most people Fang knew; hell, he was the only adult she could even swear in front of without getting lectured for her language. And it was… it was nice. She loved her relationship with her father, and she wouldn't trade it for the world.

But Fang couldn't admit it out loud, even with the guarantee of her father's secrecy, and so she shook her head and insisted, "Nothin' to tell. Vanille's practically my sister; you're just gettin' it twisted. I'm just bein' overprotective or some shit, I guess. It's not a big deal."

It was a big deal though, and when she told Vanille later that night that she was sure her father knew, the girl looked like her stomach had dropped to the floor in fear. They tried to stay away from one another after that, frightened that if her father knew, that someone else could as well. But it was harder than it seemed, and they still found themselves in compromising positions once they realized they missed each other's touch. But the months wore on and no one ever said anything, and so they realized that maybe they were getting away with it after all; that perhaps Fang's father just knew because they were so close. And Orin clearly kept his word about not telling her mother, so eventually they relaxed and things went back to normal.

Whatever normal was.

The two girls were lying on Vanille's bed, the smaller girl's head snuggled into the crook of Fang's neck as she laid half on top of her. Their mothers would be away for nearly an entire weekend this time, having taken a 'romantic trip' to a neighboring settlement to get away for a while; rekindle their relationship, whatever it was that they were doing. As Vanille was fourteen and Fang was nearing sixteen, Lelani and Nymira had allowed them to stay home this time instead of rooming with Fang's father. Which had still been an option anyway of course, but Orin told them to enjoy their freedom, and so neither girl questioned it. They would much rather be alone anyway.

"Fang…?" Vanille asked softly after a long moment's silence, apparently having just enjoyed the feeling of the brunette's fingers weaving through her hair. Fang made a little sound of acknowledgement, and Vanille asked, "Have you… ever had sex?"

Fang's hand froze, and she was quiet for a beat or two until she finally admitted, "…No." And it wasn't for Galain's lack of trying, but she kept telling him that she didn't want any distractions until after she had passed her Trials. He was disappointed of course, as they had been dating for quite some time now and maybe it was only natural that they took it to the next step, but he didn't push her, understanding that Fang's training came first. He knew how important it was to her.

"Why?" Fang asked softly, wishing her voice hadn't come out as strained as it had, because she figured she already knew the answer to her own question. "You want to with Q'ara?"

Vanille chewed lightly on her bottom lip, fiddling with the fabric of Fang's sari. "She… mentioned it," she admitted. "Because of—of our parents being away, and us being all alone. She said it would be the perfect time."

"…Right," Fang responded softly, because she couldn't argue that. But she still felt a little weird about the concept of the two of them together like that, which she knew was foolish, because of course Vanille had the right to sleep with her own girlfriend if she wanted to. Still, maybe she thought she would be the first of them to lose her virginity though, as she was older. But even as she thought that, it didn't ring true. Fang desperately tried not to analyze it though, because she didn't want to start wanting something she probably wasn't going to get. Especially with the way this conversation was going.

" _You_ think it's a good time too?" she asked hesitantly, needing to know. Vanille pursed her lips then, lifting her head up to catch Fang's gaze.

"…Yeah."

Fang felt her heart drop to her stomach, but she didn't dwell on it as she tried to be supportive with, "I can leave then, if—if ya want; probably should train some more anyway, so—" She tried to sit up, but Vanille grasped her wrist in her hand, stilling her with just the sound of her own name.

" _Fang_." Fang stopped then, allowing her gaze to connect with Vanille's. She looked so terribly nervous all of a sudden, her lip practically being worn through by her teeth as the girl steeled herself and told her, "I didn't—didn't mean with her."

Oh.

… _Oh._

Fang felt her breath leave her. "You…" She blinked, as if she were trying to make sure she really heard what she thought she did. "—Yeah?" Well, that was competent sounding. Good job.

But Vanille just shrugged awkwardly and looked away. "It's okay if you don't want to," she told her, not wanting Fang to feel pressured into anything. "I just… figured that me and you, we're—we're different, y'know? Special. And… and everyone always says how the first time should be special, so I just thought…"

But Vanille didn't have a chance to finish her sentence. Fang had cupped her face in her hands and brought her into a fierce kiss, not letting herself accept until that very moment that she had wanted the same thing, and that was the real reason she kept stalling with Galain. But Vanille was right; they were special, what they had with one another was untouched by others, something deeper tying them together than just a sexual or emotional attachment. They had grown up together, shared everything together; Vanille was her best friend, her sister, and her lover. She encompassed everything, and Fang wasn't comfortable with anyone else having that part of her save the girl in bed with her.

Vanille smiled when they broke, her breathing a little uneven as she grasped for her. "You want to?" she asked, sounding a little disbelieving; however that kiss she was granted left little much as an answer, and Fang grinned happily as she gently rested her forehead against the other girl's.

"More than anything, love."

Vanille's smile widened at the affectionate nickname and she kissed her again, but it was brief, the redhead having pulled away for a moment to inhale a nervous breath before she nodded and breathed, "Okay…" Her gaze connected with Fang's then, and she asked, "How—how do we start?"

"I have no bloody idea," Fang responded, chuckling a little with nerves herself, but it was okay, because it was Vanille; they would figure this out together, even if it ended up being messy and awkward at first. She trusted her at her most vulnerable; the only person she ever trusted with something like that, to be honest. Fang couldn't even cry in front of anyone else, save maybe her parents. "But… think kissin's a good place to start, yeah? We can figure it out from there."

Vanille pursed her lips and nodded her consent, before her gaze flickered from the brunette's eyes to her lips, and she slowly learned in and pressed her mouth against Fang's. They kissed gently at first, despite having already had numerous heavy make out sessions over the past year. Both girls were nervous though, and found that slower was easier in the long run; that way they could allow themselves some time to get used to the idea that everything between them was about to change.

Eventually though it became heavier, more insistent as Vanille got on top of her and plunged her tongue into her mouth, swallowing the groan that left Fang's lips as she grasped onto the smaller girl's hips. Vanille's fingers found the fabric of Fang's sari, pulling it down and off her shoulder, leaving nothing but a small piece of cloth between her and the brunette's breasts. She pushed that upwards rather quickly though, Fang's breasts being nothing new to her. That was as far as they had ever gone with each other though, and Fang felt her breathing become uneven as Vanille wrapped her mouth around one of her stiff nipples, her nimble fingers still pushing the fabric of her sari down her body.

It was bunched at her hips though, and Vanille was about to move off of her to be able to rid her of it before Fang reached out, clasping her hand around the girl's arm as she said a little breathlessly, "—Hey." The nipple popped out of Vanille's mouth as she looked at her in question, and Fang told her, "I'm not… the only one who needs their clothes off here, yeah?" Because she really didn't want to be completely naked while Vanille was still fully clothed; she was certain it'd make her feel self-conscious.

"—Right," Vanille breathed, giggling a little nervously at her one track mind before she bit the skin of her lower lip softly, keeping eye contact with Fang as she peeled her cropped shirt off her body. The brunette sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the girl's bare chest, despite having seen it multiple times before; regardless though, she didn't think she'd ever get tired or bored of seeing it. Vanille flushed a little at the look on Fang's face, and she wore the skin on her lip even further as she looked down at her skirt, and then back up at her. "Should we… take the rest off ourselves, or…?"

Fang pursed her lips for a moment, debating that until she finally held out her hand and said, "C'mere," in offering, moving over a little on the bed so Vanille could lie next to her. They both just looked at each other for along moment, their breathing a little irregular from nerves and hormones, before Fang took Vanille's hand in her own, encouraging it to the fabric on her hips before she did the same to hers.

She kissed her then, and both girls began undressing one another; although to be fair it was a little more difficult this way, as they still had to keep lifting their hips and moving in order to get the fabric further down their legs. Fang pulled away from the kiss in order to help the rest of the fabric off of Vanille's body, but the girl had apparently had the same idea and they ended up clunking their foreheads together, causing Fang to swear and Vanille to giggle at their blatant clumsiness.

"—You alright?" Fang asked, worried that that might have ruined the moment, but Vanille just smiled at her and told her, "Yeah," before she kissed her gently on the nose, being the first one to move then to help Fang out of the rest of her clothes. They both helped Vanille out of hers simultaneously then, and then they just… stopped. They stopped and they looked at one another, at all of what the other had to offer them, and neither was disappointed.

"Wow," Vanille breathed, looking at Fang like she was the most amazing sight she had ever seen. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment before she gently reached out to touch the dip in the other girl's hip, the gentle touch making Fang shudder. "I like this," she told her softly.

"…Yeah?"

Vanille pursed her lips as she nodded, tracing the line with her finger before she smiled. "Yeah. It's like… you have muscle here," she began, brushing her fingers over Fang's abdomen, "and here." Her thighs were next, which had bulked up considerably ever since her father made her run laps around the village. "And they're hard, y'know? Strong. But then here, it's like…" Vanille's fingers traced the dip again, and Fang's breathing shallowed each and every time she got dangerously close to the apex of her thighs. "Here, it's soft. Untouched; like it's brand new." Her eyes flickered up to meet Fang's then and she asked, "Can I touch it?"

Fang chuckled softly, breathlessly. "Think you already are."

"No, I meant… can I make it mine?" Vanille asked, rubbing gentle circles against it with her thumb. "I want claim it."

"You mean ya wanna mark me?" Fang asked breathlessly, because they had never done that. They couldn't, because no one could ever know about them. Vanille nodded, and then it was Fang's turn to bite gently on her bottom lip. If she let her do that, then she definitely couldn't let Galain anywhere near there for a little while.

Still, Fang nodded her consent, because if anyone was to mark her, claim something on her body as theirs, she would rather it be Vanille.

Vanille encouraged Fang to lie flat on her back then, before dusting her lips gently over her breasts, her abdomen, before moving further down and settling in on her side next to her, her breasts nestled against one of the brunette's thighs. Fang still had her legs closed, a little self-conscious about relaxing them when Vanille was right _there,_ but it seemed Vanille had other interests at the moment as she dragged her tongue along the line of Fang's hip, making the girl beneath her shudder and groan.

"You smell good, y'know," Vanille breathed, her lips dusting over her sensitive flesh. "Down here. Like a summer night; just when it's about to rain." Fang really wasn't sure how to take that, as she wasn't sure if she could be concerned that Vanille could smell her even with her legs closed, but she didn't have enough time to really process it because suddenly Vanille's lips were wrapped around her skin.

Fang gasped hard as Vanille sucked the sensitive skin into her mouth, her back arching as it felt like a violent shiver ran down her spine. The feeling was a lot more intense than she thought it would be, and she swore, "Fuck," as her palm hit the wall above her head.

That made Vanille stop then though, asking worriedly, "—Did I hurt you?"

But Fang just shook her head, her breathing uneven as she told her, "No, it—it just felt like…" But it took her a minute to put it into words before she explained, "It just… tickled. But in a good way. I wasn't expecting it. I guess that's really sensitive on me or somethin'."

"Oh," Vanille replied, noticeably relieved that she didn't accidently cause her pain. She caught her gaze then, asking tentatively, "Do you… want me to do it some more, or…?"

"Yeah," Fang breathed, her chest a little flushed as her nipples puckered. "Yeah, keep doin' that…"

So Vanille smiled before she leaned down again, wrapping her mouth around her skin once more as she started sucking on it hard. Fang moaned, tangling her fingers in her hair as her eyes closed and she felt an abrupt gush of wetness cover her thighs. It was such an overwhelming feeling, but it wasn't bad; in fact it turned her on so much that being self-conscious about her body was something she couldn't concern herself with anymore, and her legs fell open in invitation as Vanille made a nice dark mark on her skin.

As she continued to kiss her though, Vanille's curiosity got the better of her as she noticed the position of Fang's legs, and she allowed her fingers to gently brush up against the coarse curls that covered Fang's sex. "Can I…?" she breathed, and the word, "Yes," was out of Fang's mouth almost immediately, sounding a little desperate. It felt like her entire body was on fire.

Vanille slid her fingers through her folds then, the touch making Fang moan softly as she spread her legs a little further for her. The younger girl's breathing had picked up a little as she watched the movements of her fingers and the way it made Fang's hips twitch, and she told her softly, sounding a little in awe of it, "Wow… you're really wet."

"Yeah," Fang responded breathlessly. "Fuckin' feel like I'm drownin' a bit…"

Vanille grinned at that, before she gently bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at the apex of her lover's thighs. "I wanna drown in you…" she breathed, before she did something Fang hadn't been expecting, and allowed her tongue to run up the length of her slit. The feeling made Fang gasp, all the heat in her body rushing downwards as she instinctively craned her hips towards the girl's face.

"Shit…" she panted, and Vanille looked up at her then, continuously having to make sure that she was doing the right thing.

"Good, then?"

"I will literally give you everything I fuckin' own if you keep doin' that to me right now," Fang panted, and Vanille giggled at the desperation in her tone as she moved over a little, settling a little more comfortably between the other girl's thighs.

"You don't have to give me anything," Vanille told her softly, a little shyly as she ran her fingers up strong thighs, parting them a little more for her. "I like the way you taste…"

And then her mouth was on her again, and Fang felt like she might just explode from the feeling of it. Vanille's tongue mapped her sex slowly at first, just exploring as Fang arched her back and panted out her pleasure. Eventually however, Vanille learned that the more she ran her tongue over her clit, the louder Fang got, and she started giving it constant attention by flicking it quickly with the tip of her tongue before bringing the entire bundle of nerves into her mouth and sucking hard. Fang shook under her ministrations, her entire body flushing a deep crimson as she fisted her hand in the girl's hair and called out her name.

She came fairly quickly and with a loud shout, the muscles in her thighs twitching as the orgasm coursed through her body. Vanille came up from between her thighs, this proud grin on her face from what she had accomplished. Fang however, just panted out an apology with, "I'm… I'm sorry."

Vanille's brow crinkled. "Why?"

Fang's cheeks flushed a little in embarrassment. "It was just… a little quick, wasn't it?" Surely she was meant to last longer than that, wasn't she?

But Vanille just tilted her head to the side, this look of confusion on her face. "So?" she asked. "We don't have to be done. I could make you do that five more times, if you want; I liked being down there. It was fun." She smiled at her then, and it made Fang feel a little better about what she considered to be some kind of shortcoming – quite literally, as a matter of fact – even though that might be a ridiculous thing to think. It wasn't like there was a manual for this sort of thing.

"Maybe in a minute, yeah? Just… just c'mere," she invited, holding out her hand that tangled with Vanille's before she encouraged the girl on top of her. They kissed then, and Fang started at the taste of herself on Vanille's lips, even though she knew she should have been expecting it. It wasn't awful or anything though, so she slid her tongue into her mouth, drawing a long moan from the younger girl's lips as she began running her hands down the length of her back, coming to rest of the curvature of her arse as she squeezed, pressing Vanille into her thigh.

Fang could feel how wet the girl was against her skin, and as Vanille's breathing hitched in the back of her throat, Fang gently nipped at her bottom lip before suddenly flipping them over, causing Vanille to exhale a surprised shriek as she landed on her back. Fang chuckled at the sound before crashing their lips together once more, slipping her leg between Vanille's as she firmly pressed her thigh against her center. She swallowed Vanille's moans as she rocked against her, enjoying the way the smaller girl would grasp and claw at her back.

Fang's lips found the skin of her throat then, and Vanille exhaled a needy sounding, " _Fang…"_ as the brunette allowed her hand to slip through their bodies, getting lost in her folds. Vanille was soaked, the heat from between her thighs scorching, and Fang groaned at the feeling as she nipped beneath the younger girl's ear. She was so incredibly nervous about doing this, fearing that she'd be bad at it or she wouldn't be able to get Vanille off, but then there was another part of her that just ached to touch her, to claim this part of the girl as her own, and in the end her nerves were nothing but mere whispers in the back of her mind as she began running her fingertips over Vanille's engorged clit.

Vanille shuddered at the feeling, pulling Fang closer to her before she gently bit down on the skin of her shoulder, muffling her small sounds of pleasure. Fang's breathing was uneven against the soft crook of her neck, feeling her body flush just from being able to experience Vanille for the first time in this way. But the girl beneath her apparently wanted more than what she was being given, and as she turned her head she dusked her lips across the underside of the brunette's jaw as she breathed, "Fang… Fang, go inside of me…"

"Yeah?" Fang asked a little breathlessly, wanting to make sure. She had heard it could hurt the first time, so she wanted to be careful with her before she attempted to do something like that. But Vanille just nodded, her fingers pressing white spots onto her skin as she craned her hips closer to her hand.

"You can fit one at least," she told her, voice soft, barely above a whisper. "I've done it before. To… myself."

Fang's eyebrows rose. Not that she was surprised that she masturbated or that she had gone inside of herself before, because she had done the same, but that Vanille outright spoke about it; it was a rather taboo subject, after all. Still, she enjoyed knowing that little bit of information, and she chuckled softly as she kissed the underside of her chin. "Yeah?" she breathed. "And… what do you think about while you do that? Will you tell me?"

Because she couldn't help it; she wanted to know.

Vanille bit down on her bottom lip a little as she turned her head, catching Fang's gaze. "I don't think about anything," she whispered, and Fang was about to experience a big wave of disappointment before Vanille finished, "I… look at you."

Fang blinked. "…Me?"

Wouldn't she remember something like this? Because she was certain she would; unless Vanille meant she did it with a photograph of her or something. Fang had certainly had been guilty of _that_ in the past.

Vanille flushed a little, her cheeks turning the color of her hair. And yet still she continued, spilling all her dirty secrets to the woman atop her, "I wait until you're asleep and then I… I do it. Sometimes, I wish you'd wake up and catch me, but…" She giggled a little shyly then as she finished, "You sleep like a log."

Fang had never cursed her ability to sleep through anything more until this very moment.

She leaned in and kissed her softly though, before pulling back just enough to whisper against her lips, "Well next time…" Fang's lips found her cheek, her chin, and then the underside of her jaw as she dusted gentle patterns against her skin. "You don't have to wait for me to be sleepin'." Her fingers slid further downwards then, her middle finger slipping fairly easily inside of her and causing Vanille to exhale a quiet gasp. "'Kay…?"

"Okay…" Vanille breathed as she nodded, her lashes fluttering to her cheeks as Fang started to slowly move within her. Vanille was tight, but not uncomfortably so; with how wet she was, it was making Fang's exploration of her body a hell of a lot easier. And it was… incredible, to be inside of Vanille; to feel her muscles clench desperately around her finger as her face etched in pleasure. If she had her way, they wouldn't be leaving this bed for the entire weekend their mothers were away, damn the consequences. Damn her boyfriend, damn Vanille's girlfriend, and damn training; _this_ was what she needed to do right now.

This was what she always needed to do.

After Vanille had adjusted to her being inside of her, Fang began to slowly pick up the pace until she was moving in and out of her in rapid succession, causing Vanille's breathing to hitch between deep moans as she grasped onto the skin of her back, etching uneven patterns with her nails. Eventually though, it seemed like she might be able to fit another and so Fang asked between labored breaths if that was something that she wanted; Vanille immediately said yes.

And it was tighter this time; harder to get her second finger in, and the movement caused Vanille to wince at first which prompted Fang to stop entirely, worried that she had hurt her. "I'm fine," Vanille assured her, grasping Fang's face in her hand as the warmth of her palm spread through her cheek. "I want… I want it. You. Just… go slower."

Fang nodded her understanding and did as she was instructed, and eventually she could feel Vanille start to adjust to the intrusion, her brief flashes of feeling uncomfortable beginning to turn into wanton expressions as she slowly rolled her hips into Fang's hand. "That okay?" the brunette breathed against her lips, feeling the need to constantly check in with her. But Vanille nodded, her eyes falling closed as she allowed her fingertips to trail over the curvature of Fang's jaw.

"Yeah…" she breathed, before Fang began building a momentum and she exhaled a loud moan, followed by a very guttural sounding, _"Fuck,"_ as she grasped for her, her cheeks and chest flushing in need as she allowed Fang to pleasure her.

Eventually it became more heated though; more needy and rough as Fang practically slammed in and out of her, Vanille crying out and practically destroying the skin on her back, her arms, her chest as she clawed at her, just trying to get some semblance of feeling grounded through all this. But it was when Fang placed the heel of her palm against the girl's center, putting pressure on her clit as she captured Vanille's lips in a fierce kiss, that the girl finally fell, shouting something that vaguely sounded like her name into her mouth as she panted and shook and came in her arms.

And fuck, as Fang looked down at the girl beneath her, seeing her flushed and struggling for breath, Fang knew she wanted to do that at least twelve more times tonight, because she knew she'd never be able to get enough of her.

 **TBC…**


	4. IV

**IV.**

That night had opened a floodgate for them, honestly; and that was dangerous for a wide variety of reasons.

One, it increased their chances of being caught, and two, it made it much harder to lie to their respective partners about their virginities. Well, at least it did for Fang; Vanille had slept with Q'ara not too long after they had first gotten together, but Fang was still waiting until she finished her Trials to keep true to her word to Galain. Unfortunately, she doubted she could play off the innocent virgin act after the things she'd been doing with Vanille.

The younger girl had always been rather curious about things, and sex was no different. She wanted to try a wide variety of things, and of course Fang obliged because it allowed her to touch her. Besides, if she were being honest, Vanille wasn't the only one with curiosities, and she did enjoy experimenting, even when she found she wasn't into a certain thing. For instance, Vanille liked being penetrated… _anywhere_ , and Fang found she only liked the more traditional entrance. Still, regardless of her not enjoying being on the receiving end of anything anal, it didn't mean that she didn't enjoy being the one to give it. Fang liked doing _anything_ that made Vanille happy, to be perfectly frank.

Still, Vanille's unorthodox approach to sex seemed to make her a little embarrassed, and when Fang asked if she did anything like that with Q'ara she blushed and said no. "Why not?" Fang asked, because Q'ara was her girlfriend; didn't she want to experience sex with her in the ways that she enjoyed it?

But Vanille just looked down, her ears turning a bright pink as she mumbled, "I don't want her to think I'm weird."

"You're not weird," Fang tried to assure her, but Vanille just shrugged a little self-consciously and told her that she just… trusted her more, to not to look at her like a freak when she wanted to try something new. And while Fang hated that Vanille didn't seem to be as comfortable with her partner, as she was sure that was something that should be present in a relationship, she didn't push it because, honestly, a part of her really enjoyed that it was only her that got to see that side of Vanille. It made her feel special.

Eventually though, the time of Fang's Trials came, and it was time for her to make good on her promise to Galain. She had been thinking about it for a while now, and while she had played with him over the seam of his pants a few times, she had found that after Vanille, she was far less nervous to take it to the next step with him; in fact, by this point she was rather impatient about getting there. But there were formalities before that came, which was mainly celebrating the fact that she had passed her Trials with flying colors.

Every time someone passed their Trials and a new Hunter was initiated into their ranks, the village rejoiced. Another Hunter meant more prosperity for their village's main export, and so it was widely celebrated with food, drink, and dance. Vanille was the first to congratulate her with a loud squeal as she practically catapulted herself into the brunette's arms once she got back, nearly knocking them both clear over as she wrapped her arms around her neck and her legs around her waist. Fang laughed cheerfully at the exuberant display, holding the girl up by her butt so as to not drop her.

"You did it!" Vanille exclaimed, looking at Fang like she couldn't be prouder of her. "I knew you would."

"Yeah?" Fang asked, smirking a little as she squeezed the girl's body into her for a bit of a hug. "You didn't even have a _second_ where you were worried that I wouldn't?" But Vanille just shook her head in a rather exaggerated manner, pigtails flapping against the sides of her head.

"No way. You were born for this."

Fang smiled at her then, wishing so much that she could kiss her for that. But one glance over her shoulder caused her to be aware of her mother's very disapproving look by their show of affection to one another, as maybe it was a bit over the top that Vanille was practically wrapped around her entire body, and her expression dropped as she let go of the younger girl, allowing Vanille to slide down her body and land on her feet as she breathed softly, "…Shit."

"What?" Vanille asked, her brow furrowing at her friend's sudden shift in demeanor.

"Think that was too much. My mum's giving me a shit look right now," Fang breathed, careful that no one would overhear them. Vanille paled a little, and Fang quickly, yet subtly gave Vanille's forearm a comforting squeeze as she assured her, "Don't worry; I'll just hang all over Galain for the rest of this and she'll probably forget all about it."

Vanille's face crumpled a little at that, no doubt remembering what it was that Fang had been planning to do tonight for a rather long time. "You're not coming home tonight… are you?"

"Of course I am; you know my Mum would flip if I spent the night with a guy," Fang tried to assure her, keeping her voice low. "I won't be gone long, I promise. Besides, you know we can't… we can't do anything tonight anyway, y'know? We'll have to wait until our mum's go to work, like always. But we'll be able to celebrate this properly soon, just the two of us, yeah? I promise."

Vanille pursed her lips, nodding her head in understanding before she finally broke away from Fang, keeping their distance so their mothers wouldn't start to become suspicious. Fang, for the most part, spent the rest of the night with Galain, outside of the small bits she had with her family as they congratulated her on her initiation. Her father, in particular, was incredibly proud of her achievement, and it made Fang feel infinitely taller; like she was holding herself with so much more confidence because of it. The fact that so many people thought she couldn't do it, the fact that many of them teased her and were cruel because of her dreams, made her feel so much stronger now that she had achieved it. In the end, she was better than them, and she _knew_ that now.

So screw 'em, yeah? Tonight was about _her_ , and damn if she wasn't about to rub that in everyone's faces who didn't believe her good enough to hunt.

Sometime later though, she stole away from the crowd with her boyfriend, heading towards his house that he assured her would be empty. His parents drank quite heavily, and a celebration was an excuse to do so, so there was no way they were leaving until they had had their fill which, according to Galain, could take quite a while. It was the most privacy they could guarantee at the moment, and after having a few drinks herself, Fang was more than ready to consummate their relationship.

In fact, she was rather aggressive about it.

Her tongue was already halfway down Galain's throat by the time they entered his bedroom, her hands stripping him of his furs before breaking the kiss, placing her hand on his chest, and forcefully pushing him down onto the bed before she straddled his lap and mounted him. "Damn," he panted, holding onto Fang's hips as he looked a little overwhelmed by what was being presented to him. "Don't you maybe want to… I don't know, slow down a little or something?"

"—Why?" Fang asked, not really understanding that question as she stripped her sari from her body, leaving her only in her underclothes. Galain's eyes went a little wide at the lack of hesitancy or modesty from his girlfriend, which caused his breathing to shallow a bit as Fang felt him begin to strain against the fabric of his pants.

"Because… we've never done this before?" Galain responded, although it sounded more like a question now because of the way Fang was acting. "I mean, you haven't right? You said you hadn't." Now however, he didn't seem too sure, and Fang inwardly cursed at herself for showing him how comfortable she was with this, because logically, if she was actually a virgin, she probably shouldn't be. She was nervous her first time with Vanille, after all.

"Sorry," Fang breathed, looking a little embarrassed as she shook her head and looked away. "I think I'm just… a little drunk. It's probably makin' me act like a spaz or something. I'll slow down."

And she did after that, making careful effort to try to appear more inexperienced than she was. A part of her felt terrible about that, about lying to him, but what else could she do? No one could know about her and Vanille; they just couldn't. She liked Galain, but not enough to jeopardize her relationship with Vanille by telling him the truth; in the end, Vanille would always come first. That was just the way things were.

That was also true in regards to sex, apparently. While Fang enjoyed fucking Galain, and had even gotten off during it, he wasn't Vanille. And whether that made Fang more on the gay side, or whether she enjoyed it with her more just because it was _Vanille_ , Fang wasn't sure. At the end of the day though, it probably didn't even matter; she liked what she liked, and she didn't owe anyone an explanation for it.

How much she enjoyed sex with her quasi-little sister however, eventually ended up becoming a problem; they got reckless, which Fang knew was bound to happen one day but had hoped it would have been much father off than this. It was only a few short months after her initiation, but already Fang had been spending what seemed like far more time away from the village than she did inside of it. Therefore, it not only caused Vanille and her to miss one another quite terribly, but it caused them to want to reconnect at the first chance they had, which unfortunately was with both of their mothers inside the house.

All it took was Vanille's breathless admission of, "I've missed you so much," and suddenly Fang's tongue was down her throat as her hand snaked under the younger girl's skirt, pressing gently against her fabric covered clit in a way that caused Vanille to gasp and fist her hands in her hair as her back was pressed against the far wall. Anima, she had missed that sound. Still, she knew they had to be quiet so she breathed, "Shh," against her lips as she pressed firmer against her center, enjoying teasing Vanille a bit as she parted her lips and swallowed the offered moan that was given in response.

But that was as far as they got.

The bedroom door opened then, Lelani walking in without even bothering to knock, halfway into her sentence of, "Fang, before I forget, your father wanted me to—" before she stopped short at the sight she was presented with, her mouth opening in shock and horror.

Fang's heart leapt into her throat, her esophagus tightening in fear as her stomach dropped to the floor, and she was certain she hadn't moved that fast in her life. She practically tore herself off of Vanille, exclaiming quickly with, "—It's not what it looks like!" which, in the end, was probably very stupid, as Lelani most certainly saw them kissing if not where Fang's hand was (which she might not have, as her body was probably blocking it; but that was just one small favor amongst a sea of curses at the moment, so Fang was having a hard time feeling thankful for that) so, _obviously_ what else could it be other than what it looked like?

Fuck, they were so immensely screwed.

"Fang, you get the hell away from her _right now!"_ Lelani practically shrieked, unsurprisingly blaming _her_ once again, no doubt just because she was older, and the fact that generally no one ever thought that poor, innocent Vanille could ever do anything bloody wrong for some reason.

But she wasn't forcing herself on Vanille; she wasn't tricking her or manipulating her or anything, and Fang didn't want her mother to think she was that kind of person, so she quickly exclaimed, "No, Mum; we like each other, okay? I wasn't trying to—!"

"How many damn times do I need to remind you that she is your _sister?_ " Lelani shouted, taking a few long strides towards them before she grasped her daughter by the elbow, forcibly removing her from Vanille's presence since the girl didn't seem keen on wanting to do it herself. "And you're bloody well old enough to know better by now!"

"Ow, shit—Mum, Mum stop!" Fang exclaimed, finally ripping her arm out of her mother's vice-like grip and taking a few steps back from her once she got dragged into the living room. She was a Huntress now, practically a woman, and she wasn't about to be dragged around the house like some kind of rag doll. Not anymore. "Vanille's not my damn sister, alright?! Stop making this into such a big—!" But Fang couldn't finish her sentence, as a loud slap rang through the room that left her holding her stinging cheek.

In the end, she might be a Huntress, but she wasn't one to raise her hand to her mother in retaliation either. And so Fang steeled her jaw, trying to will herself not to cry as her mother demanded, "Are you invalidating my relationship with Nymira?" Because of course she had to make this about her; everything was always about bloody her. Sometimes, she didn't blame her dad for leaving.

She loved her mum of course, but she was far from perfect; the way she dealt with punishing her daughter being one of them. Still, Fang wasn't trying to disrespect her, so she mumbled, "No, Mum. Of course not," as she looked down at the ground, finding her shoes to be a much safer place to look at the moment.

Lelani looked like she was going to say something else, but all the shouting had alerted Nymira to the situation, who came in from tending the crops in the back yard as she asked, "What on _Pulse_ is all this yelling about?"

"What do you think?" Lelani countered, looking at her partner like she should have known straight off the bat. "I caught them kissing." Nymira's face colored in shock, and Lelani shook her head and tsked in disappointment. "I warned you something like this was bound to happen, with the way they've been looking at one another lately. We should have separated them sooner."

Fang's stomach dropped to the floor at the word 'separated', but she didn't have much of a chance to react to that, as Vanille got there first. "No!" she exclaimed, finally brave enough to leave the bedroom, where she had been practically hiding. Grasping onto the threshold, Vanille looked at her mother and begged, "No, you can't take us away from one another; you _can't!"_

"Vanille, I warned you about this!" Nymira reprimanded, which was news to Fang, as Vanille had never mentioned that her mother had said something to her. Maybe she didn't want to worry her, or thought she had it under control or _something_ , but clearly that wasn't the case. "It's out of my hands now; you know you can't have a relationship with Fang, it's completely inappropriate given my relationship with her mother—"

"Mum, please!" Vanille begged, tears beginning to spill from her eyes as her mother approached her. But Nymira just shook her head in disappointment at her as she grasped her daughter's wrist in her hand, encouraging their separation already with a, "Come on," as she began to drag Vanille back into her room so both her and Lelani could deal with their daughter's indiscretions in private.

But Vanille wouldn't stop begging even as she was being taken away, pleading her with, "No, Mum, please; _I love her!"_ which made Fang's breath leave her as Lelani's eyes went wide at the declaration. Vanille had never said that to her before, and maybe she didn't mean _in_ love, but with the way it sounded, it certainly seemed plausible.

"You're fifteen; you're too young to know what love is!" Nymira countered furiously, refusing to believe her daughter's claims before she shut the door behind them, leaving Fang and her mother alone in the living room; the former trying to remind herself to breathe, because between their mothers finding out about their relationship and Vanille's declaration, she was feeling rather overwhelmed by an onslaught of conflicting feelings.

Lelani just stared at her though, her jaw tense as she tried to force a sense of calm on herself, apparently already tired of shouting at her. "How long?" she asked, her voice a dangerous decibel. Fang swallowed hard, choosing to lie.

"That was the first time."

"You were in there for twelve bloody seconds since you got home, and you expect me to believe that that was your first time?!" Lelani shouted, apparently abandoning that sense of calm she was trying to instill in herself. That lasted long. "For Anima's sake, you've managed to fool your sister into thinking she's in love with you! So I'm gonna ask you again, Fang; and I swear if you lie to me one more time, I won't hesitate in giving you a lashing for it. I don't care _how_ old you are."

Catching her daughter's gaze, Lelani's expression was deadly serious as she asked again. "How. _Long?"_

Fang's expression crumpled, knowing there was no way this could end well as she looked at the ground, her eyes beginning to well up with tears despite trying desperately to fight against them. "…Nearly two years."

" _Shit,"_ Lelani swore, as that was apparently much longer than she thought it had been. "Have you no _sense?_ Damnit, at least tell me you had the decency not to sleep with her."

Fang stayed silent though as the first tear scorched its way down her cheek, and that was enough of an answer for her mother. "You're leaving," she told her, sounding completely unapologetic about it; which might have been the thing that hurt worst of all. "You're living with your father until you're old enough to make it on your own. I won't have you confusing that poor girl."

"Vanille's not a _child!_ " Fang practically shrieked, furious that this was getting housed on her; that everything always did. "She's old enough to make her own decisions; I'm not _manipulating_ her!"

"You're the eldest, and therefore it's on _you_ to know better," Lelani snapped. "I love Vanille, but you and I both know that she sees things… _differently_ than most people." Her voice was lowered at that, no doubt not wanting Nymira to hear her assessment of her daughter, which didn't exactly sound like a good thing. It's like she thought she was touched in the head or something. But she wasn't; she just saw the world a little brighter than most people, how the hell was that a _bad_ thing?

Fang's mouth dropped open in shock. "That doesn't mean she's _stupid!"_

"I didn't say that; don't you dare put words in my mouth!" Lelani exclaimed furiously, like she hadn't just fucking implied that exact damn thing not two seconds ago. Whatever she wanted to call it, her mother clearly didn't think Vanille was capable of making sound decisions. "This isn't up for discussion, Fang; you are not to have a relationship with that girl, and you _will_ be leaving to live with your father. _Now."_

"Wha— _now?"_ Fang exclaimed, not nearly emotionally enough prepared to be practically kicked out the damn door. Tears were running down her face in lines, and she tried with, "I can't even—I can't _say_ anything to her first? You can't just—!"

"I said this wasn't up for discussion; now move it!" her mother practically shouted, pointing to the door. "I'll pack your things for you later, but right now, you need to learn that you can't do this. You can't have a relationship with your _sister,_ Fang; that is beyond wrong."

Fang didn't bother correcting her, because in the end, what did it matter? Whether they were blood related or not, both her mother and Vanille's would never see them as anything but, not to mention the countless other residents of Oerba who viewed their mother's relationship as a way of them being tied to one another in a familial way. It absolutely devastated her, broke her heart into pieces and in the end, it left her standing on her father's porch with nothing but her sorrow and her tears.

"Shit, kid, what the hell happened?" Orin asked the second he took a look at his daughter, who looked as though she had completely shattered as she struggled to hold herself together physically, as she couldn't emotionally. Her hands were fisted in her sari as arms were wrapped around herself, looking in complete disarray as her tears fell down her cheeks in jagged lines.

And she didn't have the strength to lie. Not to him. "Mum found out about me and Vanille," she whispered, her voice broken and hoarse as she looked down at the ground. "She… she says I have to live with you now." She couldn't bear to look him in the eyes while she admitted that; not after how her mother had reacted. She feared he would be angry with her as well, but Orin once told her after he had suspected that he wouldn't tell Lelani about it should it have been true, and in the end he stayed true to his lack of judgment on the matter as his expression masked in sympathy and he approached her.

"Come on," he encouraged softly, gently taking his daughter by the hand. "Come inside. Can't have the whole bloody village seeing the first woman Huntress in a decade cryin', can we? You'll have to kick twice as much arse to set things right again." He tried to give her a small smile at that, maybe just trying to remind Fang that she was worth something, but being a Huntress didn't matter in that moment. All that mattered was that she had just lost Vanille.

But after the door closed behind them, giving them a sense of privacy, Fang felt herself fall completely apart as she exclaimed helplessly, _"—Dad;"_ pleading with him through her tears for him to understand, for him to make it better. Because it was hitting her all at once, what it was that she felt, and it made her barely able to breathe as she told him through her tears, her voice filled with so much sadness and loss, "I think I… I think I love her…"

Because it had always been about Vanille. In the end, everything else paled in comparison to her.

"You think… or you know?" Orin asked carefully, not sounding judgmental, but merely curious. Another tear slipped down Fang's cheek, the moisture being wiped off her skin as the brunette took a shuddered inhale of breath.

"I know…" she breathed, hating herself for never telling Vanille that; hating that it had to come to _this_ for her to realize the depths of her feelings. "She's… she's the only thing I ever bloody _see,_ and I just—I _can't—"_

Her voice hitched in the back of her throat then, about five seconds away from dissolving into more hysterical sobs when her father hushed her with, "Okay, okay," as he wrapped Fang in his arms, allowing her to bury her face against his chest as she cried. "Hey, it's gonna be alright, y'hear me? It's gonna be alright."

" _How?"_ Fang asked, the question coming out a little scathing with disbelief because it was unlikely that their mothers would allow them around one another without supervision now. It was over; there was no way they could be together anymore. Not right now, not when they were this young, and certainly not when they both lived _here._

"'Nille will be sixteen in a year," Orin reminded her. "You're out of the village all the time on a hunt; if she goes into the trading business when she comes of age, then you guys could meet outside of Oerba. I'm not sayin' it's ideal, but at least you'll be able to be together without the clan judgin' ya."

"How am I supposed to wait for a _year?"_ Fang asked him, pulling out of the hug to look her father in disbelief. That seemed so long from now. "I can't—"

"Fang," Orin interrupted seriously, looking his daughter in the eye. "Do you love her?"

"Of course I do, but—"

"Then you can wait a year," Orin told her, needing her to realize that time was insignificant; if she really loved Vanille and wanted to be with her, then she'd wait. Simple as that. "You could wait ten, if ya really had to, cause that's what love is, kid; even a second of bein' around them is worth a lifetime of loneliness. So… do you think you can wait for her?"

Fang swallowed, nodding her head as she wiped another tear off her cheek. "Yes," she breathed, voice still sounding rather broken and hoarse. Orin smiled at her, glad for that answer; and to be honest, it kind of overwhelmed her, how much support she had from her father when the majority of the clan would see her relationship with Vanille as something that was unnatural.

"Why are you okay with this?" she asked finally, voice barely above a whisper as she looked up at her father with wide, watery eyes. She was nearly seventeen years old, but right then she hadn't felt so much like a child. This entire situation made her feel so helpless, and so she struggled to understand the one part of it that didn't. "Mum fuckin' hates me for it… like I'm sick or somethin', for lovin' her when I've spent nearly my whole bloody life with her."

"You're not sick," Orin assured her. "People are just… overly fuckin' sensitive about shit like this. It's a fine line, y'know? And it probably didn't help that 'Nille told everyone who would listen for years that she was your sister." Fang's face crumbled at that, because she knew that if perhaps they never acted as though they were, then maybe the clan would be more forgiving about it, considering they weren't actually blood and their parents weren't joined. But it made Vanille so happy, to have a sister, and Fang just—she couldn't bear to make her unhappy. Not anymore.

"But you're not," Orin continued, voicing the same argument that Fang had. "You're not blood related; you're not even family by marriage, which to be honest still wouldn't bloody matter much to me. You're not truly related, and 'Nille… she makes you happy. Anyone with eyes can see that; so why wouldn't I be okay with it? Happiness is all I ever wanted for ya, kid; and if 'Nille's it then that's fine by me."

Fang was overwhelmed with emotion by that, having felt so alone and so attacked after what had happened with her mother, and she threw her arms around her father and gave him a fierce hug in thanks. This was why she was so close to her father; he was the only damn one in this world, outside of Vanille, who actually understood her, and right then she was so incredibly thankful for it.

However, Orin was not only supportive, but the bringer of harsh realities, and after Fang had untangled herself from the embrace he told her, "Look, I understand about 'Nille and you; but this thing with this boy you've been seein'… that I don't understand. You've been goin' behind his back, Fang; you know that's not right."

A hot wave of shame crept up her spine then, and Fang couldn't bear to look him in the eye as the guilt began to wash through her. "…I know," she whispered softly, because she did know; she had just justified it by pretending it was alright, since no one could ever know about her and Vanille. And she liked Galain, she did; but in the end, he just wasn't Vanille.

"If you're in love with 'Nille, then you gotta let him go," Orin told her seriously. "It's not fair for you to string him along like this. Y'hear me?" Fang swallowed and nodded, understanding. She knew eventually she would probably have to make a choice; she just thought that she would still have one of them if she did so. This way though, she'd have no one; not for an entire year. Still, she knew it wasn't fair to him to keep him around just to sate her loneliness while she waited for Vanille. He deserved better than that.

And so the next day, she broke it off with him. And it was—it felt _terrible,_ because she couldn't even give him a proper explanation for it. But she couldn't keep doing this, and so she told him that she'd been having some personal struggles as of late, and couldn't be invested in a relationship right now. It was the closest she could get to the truth, but it still felt like a cheap excuse after dating him for a year and a half.

Fang got really depressed after that, having felt like she lost everyone that she cared about, and so Orin promised her that he'd distract Lelani long enough to enable her and Vanille to have a proper moment alone so they could have a real goodbye, and perhaps make a plan for later. So when Lelani came by with Fang's things and asked where her daughter was, Orin shut down her search for her with, "Where the hell do ya think? In her room, cryin' her bloody eyes out thanks to you."

Which, of course, antagonized Lelani, causing her to snap back with a disbelieving, "Thanks to _me?!"_ It allowed Fang to slip out the back door unnoticed, as Orin and her never fought that much; therefore, when confronted with her father blaming her for something like this, Lelani wasn't able to just let it go. She was shocked and appalled, and it worked in Fang's favor as she stole away from the house and headed towards her old one.

After creeping around the back of it, Fang frantically searched around for a few pebbles, as she was sure she didn't have much time. They left her hand in succession, each of them lightly rapping on the window of her old bedroom. After the third one Vanille finally came to it, lifting it up almost frantically, as she knew who was down below before she even saw her.

"Fang…!" she exclaimed softly, careful not to allow her mother to hear her. And, shit, just the sight of her broke Fang's heart; she looked like she had been crying. But then again, that was about all she could do lately as well.

"Tie your sheet into knots a few hand-widths apart and then tie it to your bed post," Fang instructed in a hushed whisper. "You'll be able to get back up there without your mum knowin' you left, but I just… I need—" _You,_ but it didn't matter, because Vanille already knew and took off to do as she was told without a moment to spare, not caring much if it was reckless, because they both needed this right now.

It didn't take long before Vanille was climbing down her make-shift rope, and once her feet hit the ground she was running towards her, being wrapped up in Fang's embrace as she held her like she was afraid of ever letting her go. But they couldn't do this here either, and Fang regrettably had to let her go for a moment, which killed her a little inside because Vanille was already crying again.

"Come on," she told her, taking the girl's hand in her own before she headed further back from the house, concealing them behind a large crop of bushes. It wasn't ideal, but it was the most privacy they could have in that moment. Fang knelt down, taking Vanille with her before she was finally sure that no one could see them, and she grasped her face in her hands as she kissed her like it was the last time she would ever do so, because it might very well be.

Vanille sobbed into her mouth, grasping onto every part of Fang that she could reach as she kissed her fiercely, passionately; pouring all of the love and sorrow out of her heart and etching it on her lips. The intensity behind it made Fang tear up as well, and she knew she couldn't keep it to herself anymore as she breathed between kisses, "I love you… I'm so bloody fuckin' in love with you I can't stand it…!"

That only made Vanille cry harder, but there was happiness behind her pain at those words as she breathed back, "I love you too, I love you too…!" as they kissed and grasped and held onto one another, needing to make this moment last as long as they could.

But it couldn't last long, and that was the terrible thing. Eventually, Fang had to break the kiss, using her thumbs to brush away the tears from her lover's cheeks as she leaned her forehead against hers and told her, "My dad… he says when you come of age, that you should—you need to go into the trading business; then we can be together outside of here, when I'm out on hunts and shit…"

"He's… he's okay with it?" Vanille asked, sounding surprised; and why wouldn't she, when the whole bloody village seemed fit to condemn them? "With us?" Fang nodded, giving her a small smile, which in turn made Vanille seem to relax a little, knowing that the entire world wasn't against them giving her a little bit of hope.

That feeling was short lasting however, as Fang reminded her hurriedly, "We don't have a lot of time," which caused Vanille's expression to crumple again. "I dunno how long my dad can keep my mum distracted, but please… _please_ fuckin' tell me you will, cause fuck; I can't bloody think straight anymore, everything just freakin' hurts—"

"I will," Vanille promised her, pressing her palm to her cheek as she answered without thought or hesitation. "Fang, I will; okay? I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. Please don't—please don't be sad…" She wiped away a tear that fell down Fang's cheek then, this feeling of temporary finality washing over her being too much to bear in that moment.

"You can't tell me not to be sad when you're cryin' too," Fang tried to rationalize, but she knew it didn't matter anyway as she shook her head and looked away. This secret fear inside of her was threatening to devour her whole, and when she looked back at Vanille she couldn't stop herself from telling her, "It's… it'll be a year before you can. What if you don't—what if it's not the same anymore?"

But Vanille just shook her head, outright dismissing the possibility that things could change. "You're my sun," she reminded her softly, gently tracing the brunette's bottom lip with her thumb. "You're the only thing I can see. Okay? I'll do what I have to for us to be together, Fang; always and forever."

 _Always and forever._ It was a nice sentiment, and something Fang wished for more than anything in this world, but she also knew things were never that simple, and that regardless of how much they loved one another, that this was going to be a terribly long year.

 **TBC…**


	5. V

**V.**

And it was, such a _terribly_ long year, but it wasn't without its share of distractions to keep Fang from dwelling on it too much.

At first she was depressed about losing Vanille, about being forced into this separation that she desperately did not want, but her father reminded her that she was only as weak as she allowed herself to be, and should she only stand taller, if she only hold herself with a strength that she may not feel in that moment, that eventually that façade would become who she was, and she would grant herself the strength she needed to get through this.

"If you lie to the world enough, eventually even you begin to believe it," he had told her, and Fang had taken that to heart, because she knew she couldn't spend a year hauled up in her room crying about what had happened. She wasn't a child any longer.

She had worked so long to become a Huntress, to become respected by her clan and her peers, and if she continued to dwell in a pit of self-loathing and depression, she would become utterly useless to a group she had spent her entire life wanting to become a part of. Emotions were dangerous when you were out on a Hunt, causing distractions that could very well risk your life if you didn't learn to still your mind, and so to keep herself grounded and focused, Fang forced herself to forget about Vanille a good portion of the time. It wasn't ideal, but it kept her from breaking down, and destroying everything that she worked so hard to build.

Fang needed to be strong, so she pretended she was. She needed to be confident and respected, so she worked twice as hard so other people would view her in the way that she needed to be seen. If everyone else looked at her like she was doing something right, then maybe she'd forget about what she had done wrong; because she knew it was her own fault that she and Vanille got caught. She should have had more patience, waited until their mothers went to work the next day like always, but she had just missed her so terribly and it caused her to become reckless; and she couldn't become reckless. Not anymore.

And it was strange, how much one holds themselves becoming part of their appeal. Fang hadn't expected it, but when she was suddenly feigning a confidence she had yet to fully own, it was as though people looked at her differently. Suddenly she was something to be desired, when once she had been nothing but something to be laughed at. It irked her, to be quite honest, and although a fair share of both men and women in the clan now practically seemed to fall all over themselves at the sight of her, Fang never once took another lover. She didn't want them; she didn't want someone who thought she was only worth something now that she was a respected Huntress who apparently had a body that was suddenly deemed worthy of practically salivating over. She wanted someone who saw who she was and _wanted_ who she was before all that.

She wanted Vanille.

She wasn't an option though; at least not for another month or two. Her sixteenth birthday was growing nearer, but it wasn't guaranteed that she'd get a job straight off. Fang tried to think positively however, and when she couldn't then she chose to not think of it at all, and immersed herself in a plethora of other distractions in order for her not to dwell. Unfortunately, those distractions were sometimes an immense irritation; like now.

She had just come back from a hunt, and already the story of how she had nearly single-handedly taken on a behemoth was circling the village. Which was a bit of an exaggeration anyway, as she had only been fighting it on her own for a little while until two of the men caught up with her, but apparently the fact that she hadn't _died_ in that short amount of time was impressive enough to warrant envy and adoration.

Usually, no less than three people would take on one because of its sheer size and strength, especially after it became enraged, but Fang's newfound cockiness got the best of her and after bets were made wherein people stated that there was no way in hell she would ever take one on herself, she found herself in a situation that would have probably gotten her killed if not for the help she received in the end. Recklessness… she was supposed to stop it with that, wasn't she? But she also couldn't back down from a challenge, given the way her skills were constantly questioned while she grew up, and honestly at this point she was just lucky that she had done well, because she was certain her father would chew her out if she ended up getting hurt.

Although to be honest, he probably would anyway, because while she had gotten out of it unscathed, it _was_ stupid. She knew that, but for now she tried to pretend it wasn't, because everyone was looking at her like she must have been marked as a l'Cie or something, to have been able to do that on her own. And, well, those who were gifted to become a l'Cie were practically worshipped on Gran Pulse, as being chosen was a great honor amongst her people, but she wasn't. No one had been in centuries, at least not amongst her clan, but it was still nice to be looked at like she was as close to that as one could get, even if part of it was brought on by sheer dumb luck.

So yeah, that part was nice. Right now though, what was happening, this was _not._

The story had sparked something in her many admirers, and one of them, a woman named Veseere, who was about a year and a half older than her and was once the bane of Fang's fucking existence, was practically falling all over her as she attempted to flatter her. She was constantly and flirtatiously touching her arm whilst she was doing so as well, like she actually thought she had a right to do something like that, and while Fang was about two seconds away from snapping at her to fuck right off, instead she reminded herself that life was only as shit as you made it, and thus at least sought to have a little bit of fun with her blatant rejection of the woman.

And that came about by first pretending that she was interested.

After regaling her heroic story per request (that was based more in pure bullshit and exaggeration than anything actually factual save the fact that an actual behemoth _was_ present at the time), Fang watched Veseere's breathing shallow as she got a little closer to her, looking down at the other woman like suddenly the behemoth wasn't the prey in this story any longer.

"…And when my lance finally penetrated its hide," she continued in a low, husky voice, completely playing dirty with her blatant use of euphemisms, "my blade slid in so smooth, so easily, that my hairs stood on end just from the pure _rush_ it gave me. Believe me, there's no greater feelin' of power than being inside of something; of knowin' that you _own_ it, can give it sweet relief from the agony you're inflicting on it…"

Veseere swallowed, and Fang resisted the urge to smirk. Instead she cocked her head to the side, her tongue gently pressing against her incisors as she asked much too innocently, "Don't you wager?"

"I…" Veseere had to clear her throat then, her cheeks flushing a little as she admitted, "…I wouldn't know."

And Fang wasn't sure if she just meant hunting, or that the woman understood the double entendres she was using, but either way she flickered her gaze down to Veseere's lips, before once again landing on her eyes. "Oh," she responded, feigning disappointment. "Well that's a shame, innit? Seems like such a waste if ya ask me; you look like you'd be good at it…"

"You could teach me," Veseere responded, a bit too eagerly, which caused her to flush bright red again. "I mean, if… if you want."

"Yeah?" Fang responded, feigning interest before she eradicated nearly all of the space between them, forcing Veseere practically up against the wall of one of the houses as she asked in a low, sulty tone, "And what exactly are you plannin' on… _owning?"_

"I…" Veseere tried, but didn't seem like she was able to think very properly; at least not with the position Fang had just put her in. "Whatever you want me to," she breathed instead, which sounded so desperately needy that Fang nearly burst out laughing, because this was fucking _rich_ wasn't it; coming from her? But she restrained herself, watching the woman get even redder at her own stupid words, before she corrected herself quickly, "I—I mean, whatever you suggest. You're the expert… Huntress, here."

Her hesitation on Huntress at least confirmed to Fang that they hadn't been talking about that at all before, which was interesting; what was she then, her first girl crush? Veseere was beautiful, not to mention fairly popular when they were school aged; she probably could have had any other woman she wanted, yet instead she wanted the one she was horrible to years back to be her first? What a bloody joke.

Maybe she forgot, but Fang certainly hadn't.

But her eyes momentarily strayed from the woman in front of her for a moment as she saw a blur of bright colors out of her peripheral. Vanille was across the square, and she had stopped once she noticed the position Fang was in with the other woman. Not wanting her to get the wrong idea about what was going on, Fang knew she had to end this game quickly, so she turned back to Veseere and ran her hand down the length of her lance suggestively as she told her, "I bet you'd love the feel of a rough, firm weapon in your hand… you just grasp onto it like this; just as you would a nice, hard _cock."_

That blatant insinuation clearly startled Veseere, who blinked and stumbled, "W-What?" because something like that generally wasn't a factor when two women were involved, and Fang's mention of it seemed to come out of nowhere, considering how they had been flirting.

"Well that's what you like, isn't it?" Fang countered, arching an eyebrow in her direction. "You think I don't know that it was _you_ who spread that rumor around that I had a cock when I was younger? And yet now you've what, suddenly decided you wanted a taste of it?"

"I…" Veseere tried, suddenly looking rather flustered, and no longer in a good way. "I was—we were _children_ , Fang…" And Anima, it was such a bullshit excuse, wasn't it? Yeah, it might have been years ago, but Fang could still remember watching the girl whisper behind her back, giggling with her friends like she was this huge joke, and even though she wasn't a child any longer, the memory of it still hurt. So fuck her, of course she wasn't going to forget something like that.

She deserved better than someone who thought she was attractive just because she gained an approval that most people believed she would never earn.

"Doesn't change the fact that I'd have you choke on my imaginary cock if I could," Fang snapped back, causing Veseere's expression to awash with insult. "Piss off."

Veseere scoffed at her, looking infuriated and embarrassed by what had transpired between them, as she clearly thought she had been getting somewhere until she was very rudely put in her place. "Bitch," she muttered under her breath before she stomped off, but not before practically shoving Fang to the side with the shoulder. Fang rolled her eyes at that, as clearly the woman was just trying to antagonize her into hitting her and ruining her image by coming off as unstable, but she had better things to do with her time than give into something like that. She already got her revenge; it was over now.

Her eyes caught Vanille's then, who gave her a look that needed no explanation as she slipped away. Fang waited a respectable amount of time before following after her, once she was sure she wasn't being watched. It was dangerous, doing this, especially since they were so close to freedom, but Fang didn't know how to stop herself from doing exactly what Vanille wanted, when she wanted it. For barely seeing her lately, her whole bloody life still revolved around her.

When she got to what was now considered 'their spot' behind a small clearing between the bushes and the high fence that surrounded Oerba, Fang was practically pulled down to her knees before her face was being grasped in her hands as she was being kissed firmly; possessively. It had been over two months since the last time she was able to feel Vanille's lips against her own, and therefore Fang tried to ignore the paranoia in the back of her mind about being caught as she allowed herself to enjoy what she was being given.

Vanille was being rather rough about it, plunging her tongue deep into her mouth as her fingertips pressed into her cheeks and caused a breathy whimper to be released from the back of Fang's throat. Sharp teeth sunk into succulent flesh then, the bite hard enough to sting as Vanille pulled on her bottom lip roughly enough to allow it to snap back into place once it had been released, and Fang felt herself grow wet as she breathed, "Vanille, don't—don't start something you can't finish," because fuck, it had been way too long since she had been able to touch her and already the thought of that killed her without having the girl driving her bloody mental in the process.

Vanille nipped at the underside of her jaw, her lips finding a home against the brunette's ear before she traced it with her tongue, apparently outright ignoring Fang's request not to get her too worked up as she made the older woman shiver in need as her fingers dug into Vanille's thigh. "I'm better," she breathed against her skin finally, which caused Fang's eyebrows to rise.

"You're everything," she corrected softly, before she allowed herself to turn her head, her gaze catching the redhead's. "I wasn't—I was just fuckin' with her, Van; figured you got that by her reaction in the end."

"I know," Vanille responded softly, before sliding her hand over Fang's and lacing their fingers together. The corners of her lips turned down into a small frown then before she finished, "But I just wanted you to remember that, because it's… it's different now."

"What do you mean?" Fang asked as she squeezed the younger woman's hand, not understanding which part of all of this she was referring to.

"I don't care if other people touch you," Vanille told her, looking down at their linked hands for a moment before her gaze rose upwards, catching the brunette's eyes. "But only if I can too. If they can and I can't then it's just… it's not fair."

Maybe that was why she broke up with Q'ara not long after she and Fang were separated; in the end, Vanille didn't find it fair to indulge in something like that if Fang couldn't do it as well. And while that wasn't why Fang broke up with Galain in the first place, she did realize that she wasn't interested in having anyone else if she couldn't have Vanille. She came first; she would always come first.

"Vanille, no one's gonna touch me, alright?" Fang promised her, placing her palm against the other girl's cheek. "I don't give a shit about fuckin' anyone other than you. I'm waitin', okay? I'm not ever gonna go behind your back."

Vanille nodded, understanding that, and Fang pulled her in to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "I gotta go," she breathed regrettably. "We've been back here too long already. But I'll write to you, yeah? Somethin' real long."

Because that was how they had been communicating lately, with letters that Fang's father delivered back and forth for them. Since their mothers refused to let them spend any time together unless they were around to 'monitor' it, it was the only way they could express how they felt about one another freely, save the few stolen moments they found to be alone. But those were risky and they both knew it, and they didn't want their mothers to realize why Vanille was going to choose a trade that allowed her to leave the village unmonitored. They were certain Nymira wouldn't allow her to do so if she knew the real reason behind it, and so they tried very hard to pretend as though they were obeying their wishes by not being together.

It was so incredibly difficult, and most days Fang felt so very alone, like she was missing a part of herself by not being with Vanille, but the letters did help. They were a constant reminder to one another that just because they couldn't be together right now, that nothing had changed; that they still loved one another more than anything in this world, and that they were keeping their promise to each other that one day, that would all change.

At first, the letters were mostly about missing one another and how hard it was, but they eventually turned into everything they would do once they were finally granted the freedom to be with one another and well… Vanille's were _dirty_. She had a way with words that Fang was surprised by, as she never really talked dirty in the bedroom before, and the things she wrote caused the brunette to flush with arousal before she eventually had to take care of herself, coming against her own hand as she imagined the picture Vanille had painted for her.

Fang wished more than anything that she could have kept those letters, as she would no doubt use the material provided for her over and over for masturbatory purposes, but she couldn't. Right after they read one another's letters, they had made a promise to destroy them, because if they were ever found by their mothers then everything they had planned would come crashing down around them. Still, Fang wished she had something real to hold onto, since it couldn't be the girl herself.

Eventually though, the time came when they could. Vanille had managed to insert herself into the right circles in the clan in order to get a job in the trading business as soon as she turned sixteen, and Fang was finally standing in the middle of the small room of an Inn a few villages over, her heart practically pounding in her throat as she awaited Vanille's arrival. She was nervous, which was probably ridiculous, but it had been so long since they had been able to properly be together that Fang needed this to go perfectly.

And she didn't have a lot of time to do that.

While Vanille would be expected to be gone for days as she went around to the respected villages with her goods, Fang was not. Most Hunters did not leave for more than two days at a time, and even then when they did they usually came back with a rather large haul. Fang had to somehow juggle time with Vanille with hunting, because there was no way she could come back empty handed. At most she had until dawn, and even that was pushing it, but she resolved to hunt straight through the day without stopping should she need to, if that's what it took to be able to do this. She'd do anything to be with Vanille again; that wasn't even a question. She just wished that after so long, that they'd have more time together than just one night.

She resolved to make the most of it though, and when Vanille finally stepped through the door, Fang found that in the long run she didn't bloody much care about how long they did or didn't have; she just felt blessed that she had the woman in her life in the first place. So long as she got to keep that, no matter how she had to go about keeping it, nothing else mattered.

They were wrapped in one another's embrace mere seconds after Vanille had closed the door behind her, passionate kisses becoming mixed with tears of happiness as they grasped for one another, touching everything that had been denied to them for so long. "I've missed you…!" Vanille exclaimed against her lips, voice filled with so much emotion as she touched her face, as though trying to convince herself that Fang was real, and that this was really happening. "So—so much; I could barely _stand_ it…"

"I'm right here, love," Fang breathed passionately, sliding her arms around the smaller girl's waist, holding her close as she continued through erratic kisses, "I'll always… _always_ be right here." She kissed away the tears on Vanille's cheeks then, her tongue catching the next that fell from the redhead's eyes before Vanille wrapped her arms around her neck, burying her face into Fang's chest as she just held her close, needing that connection more than anything else in that moment.

Fang smiled gently, kissing the top of her head as she softly teased, "You're such a cry baby… we're together now, it's okay…" Of course pointedly ignoring the fact that her own eyes were all misted over as well. Still, she couldn't resist teasing her; it had been far too long.

"Shut up," Vanille retorted, her voice a little hoarse as she lightly hit her girlfriend's shoulder with her fist. She looked up at her then, eyes wide and watery as she told her, "I just love you and I'm—I'm _happy…_ I haven't been happy in so long, Fang…"

"I know," Fang breathed, cupping the girl's cheek in her hand as she used her thumb to wipe away more tears. Gently resting her forehead against Vanille's she told her softly, "I haven't been happy in a long time either. The world's so damn dark without you; cause… cause your smile, y'know?" Her thumb traced the curvature of the girl's lips then, just as her own face was graced with a light smile of her own. "It just lights up everything, and without it everything feels fuckin' hollow… cold and distant and just absolutely, bloody fuckin' shitty. My world is shit without you in it."

That smile she coveted so much broke out across Vanille's face then, causing Fang's to grow even wider in response as she leaned in and kissed her, parting just briefly to whisper against her lips, "See? That's it… that's all I fuckin' need; just smile for me, love. It's beautiful; _you're_ beautiful…" Her lips found her cheek then, followed by the underside of her jaw before finally settling against the base of her neck, coaxing a soft moan from the woman in her arms as Fang sought to show her just how beautiful she thought she was.

Their lips met again, fingers grasping for purchase as they began ridding one another of the material that separated them. It was messy, it was uncoordinated, and it was desperate, neither of them having been able to touch the other for more than a year now. Fang's sari was already pooled at her feet by the time she managed to rid Vanille of at least half of her clothes, and in order to make this a little more special for the girl in her arms, she sought to play out a fantasy that Vanille had told her about in vivid detail as she forced the redhead to turn around and press her chest against the wall.

A strong hand fisted in her hair then, causing Vanille to exhale a breathy moan as Fang pulled her hair to the side in order to wrap her lips around the back of her neck. Her other hand was busy ridding the younger woman of her belt before it finally gave way, and Fang was able to push the last of Vanille's clothing off her hips. As the girl spread her stance, Fang's hand got lost between her thighs, one hand still fisted possessively in her hair as she begun gently teasing her with her fingertips from behind.

Vanille groaned in need as Fang's tongue traced her ear, her hot breath against it causing her to shudder as the brunette breathed, "I've missed the way you feel, the way you _taste_ …" She pulled her hand from her then, cleaning off one of her fingers with her tongue before she offered the other to Vanille, who took it entirely into her mouth and began to suck on it in earnest. Fang groaned at the feeling of it before she withdrew it from the girl's mouth, her hands finding purchase against the smooth skin of the redhead's back as she began kissing down her spine.

Her knees eventually hit the floor then, and Fang wasted no time burying her face between the other girl's legs, causing Vanille to exhale a needy sounding, " _Fang…_ " as she took the sensitive bundle of nerves entirely into her mouth, sucking on it gently as she allowed her hands to spread her cheeks. And then her tongue moved upwards, teasing her other entrance and making Vanille cry out at the feeling of it as her nails scratched helplessly against the firm wood of the walls.

She had never done that before, but in her last letter Vanille had expressed an interest in trying it, and as Fang was apt to give the girl anything she bloody wanted from now until the end of time, she wasted no time in allowing Vanille her little fantasy. She pulled away a little though, her teeth gently sinking into the soft skin of her arse before she checked in with her with a soft, "You like that?"

"Yes…" Vanille breathed, bending over a little more in offering before Fang's tongue found its home against her puckered hole once more, gently teasing it before she allowed it to slip entirely inside of her, causing Vanille to cry out her name as her own hand got lost between her thighs. As Fang continued her tongue's assault, Vanille began pinching and rolling her clit between her fingers, her breathing coming out uneven as Fang provided her with a fantasy she had been craving for quite some time now.

Eventually though, Fang wanted something a little more intimate and so she pulled away as she stood, pressing the girl's back entirely against her chest as she held her in a rather possessive manner. Her arm was snaked around her front, her forearm pressed between Vanille's breasts as her fingers spread out against her throat; not roughly holding her by any means, but in a way that left no question as to who owned her. Because that was what Vanille had wanted, for Fang to fuck her 'like she owned her', and the brunette sought to make that a reality as her other hand got lost between the girl's thighs again, two fingers being slipped inside of her while her thumb found its home inside her second entrance.

" _Yes,_ " Vanille breathed in needy approval, reaching behind her as her nails scratched lightly against the skin on the back of Fang's neck. "Please…" she begged, and the brunette didn't need to be told twice.

Holding her firmly against her body, Fang began fucking her with force, the strength behind it easily causing the girl to be tossed around like a rag doll if not for Fang's arm keeping her nearly still against her form. It apparently furthered the lack of control that Vanille had fantasized about, and she helplessly grasped for her as she cried out, her words barely being able to be exhaled coherently due to each firm thrust inside of her as she was completely filled by the woman behind her. "F—f… _uck…_ Fan—Fang…!"

"I could do this all night," Fang breathed against her ear, picking up the pace of her fingers and nearly making Vanille choke on her own breath. "Just fuck you into submission over and over… fuck you until you can't walk, until you can't _breathe…"_

Vanille exhaled a strangled sounding plea at that, Fang's words causing an abrupt gush of wetness to cover the brunette's hand. "Would you like that?" she continued, voice husky and full of need as each word caused a violent shiver to run down the younger woman's spine. "I'll fuck you in all the ways you ever wanted; all the dirty little fantasies you've always had. I'll do whatever you want me to, love; I don't care what it is. Just tell me… just tell me…"

"F… _ang_ ," Vanille whined, her nails digging into the brunette's skin as she tried to form competent words as Fang slammed into her with no remorse. "Choke… me…" And Anima, Fang had no idea where Vanille got all this stuff from, or how she ever thought of things like this as something that might be pleasurable to her, but Fang didn't hesitate in complying as the hand that was around the girl's throat already pressed down, cutting off Vanille's air.

She convulsed in her arms then, coming as she practically choked on the last breath she had taken, and Fang immediately released her hold on her throat as Vanille trembled and whimpered and struggled for air. "Shit," Fang breathed, feeling Vanille's legs buckle from underneath her as she tightened her hold, allowing her to stay upright. "You okay?"

But Vanille just nodded, holding onto her as she tried to find her breath. "It… made me lightheaded," she told her through erratic breaths, which made Fang's brow crease in concern because she hoped she hadn't hurt her. But as Fang helped the girl turn around to better face her, Vanille noticed the look on her face and told her, "No, it was… it was good. Like… flying a bit."

"Yeah?" Fang asked, sounding intrigued by the feeling as she held her. "Will ya… try it on me sometime?" Because that sounded like it might actually be something she'd find enjoyable, and hell, she wouldn't know unless she tried. Vanille smiled at her and nodded, always glad when Fang wanted to try out the things she did.

"I love you," Vanille breathed then, looking up into her eyes as she touched her girlfriend's face as though she were made out of the most precious of jewels. She grinned then; this wide, beautiful expression that lit up her entire face as she finished softly, adoringly, "My little sun."

" _Little?_ " Fang responded with feigned insult as she suddenly scooped Vanille up into her arms, causing the girl to release a high pitched squeal as Fang brought her over the bed and asked, "Who you callin' little?"

Vanille giggled as she was dumped rather unceremoniously onto the mattress, grasping for her as Fang situated herself atop her. "You're… littler than the actual sun…" she tried to explain as Fang began kissing her neck and the underside of her ear.

"Smaller, you mean?" Fang corrected with a chuckle, finding Vanille's incorrect word usage to be a little endearing. But Vanille just shook her head, content on her own choice of wording; screw what was actually correct.

"No, 'littler'… cause it sounds cuter. You're all bright and shiny and… mmmm," she breathed in approval, her fingernails digging into her girlfriend's back as Fang continued to kiss and lick the expanse of her neck. "Cute," she finished, causing Fang's brow to rise in disbelief. "You're really, really cute."

"Pretty sure that's not a word anyone has _ever_ used to describe me," Fang told her as she raised her head to look down at her, because she wasn't all small and compact like Vanille; she wasn't skinny and dainty and adorable, she was big and strong and looked like she could probably kill you with her bare hands.

"That's because everyone else is stupid," Vanille told her, looking up into her eyes. "And I know… I know everyone thinks I am, cause of the way I talk; they think my head's all full of air…" And just hearing Vanille say that broke Fang's heart, because she had hoped the girl didn't know what was said about her. When once her high pitched voice and bright outlook caused everyone to think she was the cutest thing that ever walked this earth, as Vanille got older it seemed to become less endearing and more of a worrisome quality, like she was mentally stunted or something. But she wasn't; she was just different than everyone else, and Fang despised everyone who ever believed Vanille to be less than what she was for it.

"But it's not," Vanille continued strongly, self-assured despite the things that had been said about her. "I've always seen you the right way; I always saw you as the brightest thing in the room, and now that everyone else sees you as something beautiful and strong, it just proves that I was right. So they're the ones that are stupid, the ones that are slow and blind and stunted; you'll remember that… right?"

Fang touched her face then, her thumb dragging across the expanse of her bottom lip as she told her honestly, "I don't care how anyone else looks at me, love; don't care if they want me. I want _you._ You're the only one I ever bloody see, and the only one who's ever seen _me_. The real me, not this stupid fantasy people are startin' to get, y'know? That means something to me; more than fuckin' anything else."

Vanille smiled at her then, happy with that answer as Fang continued softly, "Besides… y'know, what we were—what we were doin' before? With Galain and Q'ara? That wasn't—it wasn't right. If they had known it'd be one thing, but they didn't. So it doesn't matter, yeah? Cause we're all each other can have anyway. I'm not gonna be with anyone else but you, cause we can't ever tell people about us; we can't be honest with them, and if we can't be honest then we shouldn't do it."

Vanille pursed her lips, but nodded in understanding. She had said once that she didn't mind if other people touched her, and now that they could Fang was sure Vanille was open once again to the possibility of them taking other lovers in the downtime they had before they could see one another, but the fact of the matter was that they really couldn't. Her father had been right; what they had been doing to their respective boyfriend and girlfriend was wrong. It was a terrible thing; to go behind someone's back who cares for you.

Maybe it was strange, for neither of them to care much if the woman that they loved was touched by another, but perhaps it was just something they got used to because of the way they had to hide it before. Sometimes Fang got jealous, but she never felt _threatened_ by Vanille's relationship with Q'ara, because she knew Vanille cared about her more. If the girl had to choose back then, then she would have chosen Fang, and that was enough for her. In the end, it was important to both of them that they each felt satisfied emotionally and sexually, because they couldn't be everything for one another like they wished they could be, and to deny the other something like that seemed incredibly selfish at the time.

Indulging in it was the thing that ended up being selfish though, as while having a relationship outside of one another satisfied _them,_ the lying and the deceit would have no doubt brought pain to the other people who cared for them if they had known. And so they couldn't, not anymore; they had to be better people than that, and maybe what they had with one another now wasn't a lot nor was it often, it was enough that Fang was sure she could do without a second lover. After all, they had waited nearly a year for one another before; what was a month or two now?

Still, Fang had to check that they were on the same page as she dusted her fingertips across the younger girl's jaw asking, "Right? You know we can't… do that shit anymore, yeah?"

"Yeah," Vanille responded softly, before gently taking Fang's hand in hers and tangling their fingers together. "But it's okay; I'll wait for you. You're the best at making me come anyway." Fang chuckled at that, leaning down to press a gentle kiss against her lips.

"You don't got much for a basis of comparison though," she reminded her, because as far as she knew, Vanille had only ever been with one other person. But Vanille just shrugged, not really caring that she didn't have a wide variety of experience at the moment in order to accurately state such a thing.

"Doesn't matter," she told her strongly, not letting Fang diminish her opinion because it wasn't really based on skill anyway. "You let me do whatever I want; let me try anything, even if it's weird. It's always fun when I fuck you, Fang. I like that."

"Yeah?" Fang responded, grinning as she leaned down for another kiss. "And what do ya want me to do to you tonight, love? Have anything else you wanna try?" Because as much as Vanille loved ticking off all the boxes, Fang loved learning new ways to make the girl practically melt into her touch. She wanted to know all the things Vanille liked, all the things that got her off, because she wanted to be everything for her; she _needed_ to be everything for her, at least in the short moments that they had with one another.

Vanille bit her bottom lip softly in thought, hesitating for a moment before she asked, a little shyly, "Will you… tie me up?"

"Yeah?" Fang asked, glancing at the long bedposts. That certainly seemed doable, and a bit tamer than she was expecting, honestly. Vanille nodded.

"And… and blindfold me?" she requested softly, looking up at her with wide, pleading eyes. "I don't… wanna know what you're gonna do to me. I wanna be helpless and completely yours; and you can… you can do anything you want to my body, okay? _Anything…"_

And, alright, _there_ was the less tame part that Fang had been expecting. With the way Vanille said 'anything', it was if she wanted her to do the dirtiest things Fang could think of to her, which… wasn't exactly her forte. "You know I don't have an imagination like you do, love," she tried to tell her, because she didn't want to end up disappointing her or something. But Vanille just shook her head.

"Doesn't matter. Just… surprise me, okay? I just want to let you do whatever you want to me; I don't want to have a say in it."

"Okay," Fang promised her softly, her mind already going a million miles an hour as she tried to think of things she could do to her. But after she lightly pressed her lips against Vanille's jaw, she requested, "But if I do something you don't like, then you gotta tell me, okay? You promise?"

The girl nodded eagerly, a small smile on her face, and Fang wasted no time getting to work at completely owning everything that Vanille was. And maybe other people, if they ever knew, would find their sex life to be strange, but it wasn't as though it was completely based in kink. Sometimes they just held one another and made love until the sun came up, and Fang enjoyed that just as much as she did fulfilling her girlfriend's wide array of colorful fantasies.

Because in the end, all they needed was each other, and it didn't matter how they expressed their love for one another, so long as they were able to.

 **TBC…**


	6. VI

**VI.**

"You look happy," Orin said to his daughter one day, and Fang couldn't stop the large smile that graced her face at those words, her cheeks tingeing with a light pink as she affirmed that she was. She really, really _was._

After more than a year of separation, the fact that she could finally be with Vanille was more than she ever could have hoped for, despite only ever being able to see her on sporadic occasions. It didn't matter though; it was enough, _more_ than enough, and that was blatantly obvious to her father as he brought her into a hug and told her that he was happy that things were working out for her. He did warn her of course to be careful, as her mother could never find out, but because she and Vanille now had the freedom to see one another outside of the village, they made careful effort to rarely interact while inside Oerba's gates.

Orin had watched her fall into a pit of depression last year though, so if he ever did have any secret reservations about her relationship with Vanille, Fang was sure how happy she was now squandered any that remained. So he encouraged it, even told her that if she wanted to spend a little more time with Vanille, that he would hunt in her stead for a bit so she could have something to bring back to the clan without it interrupting their time together.

Fang was so incredibly thankful for him, for everything he was doing to support her and her relationship, that she ended up having Vanille help her create a necklace from some of the teeth of her many kills as a way of saying thank you. Vanille was the crafty one, after all, having made most of her own jewelry herself, and so really most of it was all her, save the fact that the teeth came from creatures that Fang had killed herself.

In a way it was better that way though, as Vanille wanted to be a part of the gift for her father as well. Orin was like the dad she never had, and seeing as his support helped them both get through a rather painful time of separation for them, she wanted to express her gratitude as well.

"Do you ever wonder," Fang asked carefully while they worked, knowing the subject might be a sensitive one for the girl next to her, "about your real father? Who he was?"

"Nope," Vanille answered easily as she strung another tooth onto the necklace, seemingly rather uncaring about it. "Mum says I don't have one, so I don't."

To her, it seemed as simple as that, but Fang saw something behind the girl's eyes that she didn't allow herself to express. Fang had tried to ask about Vanille's father once when they were both very young, but she was still given the same answer. At the time though, Fang just figured Vanille was too young for her Mum to tell her that he ended up dying or something, but she was nearly seventeen now; surely if she asked, her mother would have told her.

"You haven't asked her recently though?" Fang asked, clearly missing all of the signals that Vanille in no way wanted to speak about this. She was just curious though, and couldn't help wondering about it. "Think you're old enough now, y'know? If you asked—"

"Fang," Vanille interrupted, her voice deadly serious as she looked over at her girlfriend. "I don't have a father, okay? Stop."

Fang's chest compressed a little at the girl's tone, realizing she had pushed too hard. "…I'm sorry," she apologized softly, feeling ashamed of herself for not dropping it before this. And at first she didn't understand why Vanille wouldn't ever want to go looking for answers, but as they worked in silence side by side then, Fang suddenly began to realize what it was that Vanille thought had happened.

War on Gran Pulse, in some areas of it anyway, was rather brutal, and sometimes when a village was defeated the invading clan took some of the women as their… spoils. It wasn't something Fang had experienced firsthand, as Oerba had never been invaded so long as she lived in it, but it was something she heard about anyway; a warning from her mother once, that should that ever happen, that she not surrender. "Run," she had told her, "because sometimes, what they will do to you as a captive is worse than dying on the Steppe."

And that thought made Fang feel sick to her stomach, as if that were true then Nymira had been subjected to far more war and brutality than she had realized. She had run from her last village when Vanille was three; had she only been there a few short years, before the past started to repeat itself? Fang couldn't imagine how terrifying that would have been for her, especially when that time she wasn't just trying to protect herself, but a toddler.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness and sympathy welled up in her then, and Fang couldn't help but reach over and gently tangle her fingers in her girlfriend's hair, bringing Vanille towards her so she could place a light kiss on top of the girl's head. Vanille pursed her lips, her hands abandoning her task for a moment as she requested in a tiny whisper, "…Please don't think about it, okay?"

"Okay," Fang breathed, still holding the girl close to her for a moment as she promised not to dwell on it anymore. "Besides… doesn't matter anyway though, y'know? Cause you already got a dad. You've got mine."

Vanille smiled a little at that, looking up at her. "You think he's gonna like it? I know I'm better with bracelets, so I'm afraid it's gonna turn out a little crappy."

"Nah, love; it's beautiful. Trust me, he's gonna love it," Fang assured her, and she was right; he did. The man even teared up a bit when they presented it to him, bringing them both into a big hug and calling them 'his girls' as he thanked them for the gift. He hadn't taken it off since that day, and every time Fang saw him wearing it, it made her smile. She loved her mum, and she loved Vanille's mum, but her, Vanille, and her dad? That was her real family. They were who she was closest too.

The months wore on, and Fang and Vanille continued to see each other outside of the village's limits as often as they could. Tonight was one of the times that her father had offered to do some of her hunting for her – not all of it, mind, as he refused to let her get lazy about it – but it did allot her at least a half a day more with the other girl, which she appreciated.

They usually spent most of the time hauled up in a room in the Inn, but the last couple times they had been trying to enjoy themselves outside of there a little, wanting to experience what it was like to be out in public and not have to hide their relationship. They were in a pub drinking this time, an establishment that they had been in only once before, when Vanille said, much too casually given the sentence, "…I think I want to fuck a guy."

Fang nearly choked on her drink.

"W-What?" she asked, practically spluttering, because wasn't Vanille gay? The girl was seventeen years old, and had never _once_ expressed an interest in a male. At this point, Fang was fairly certain where her girlfriend's sexuality resided on the scale, but apparently she might have been wrong about that. Vanille just shrugged casually though, taking another sip of her drink.

"I dunno. I think I should, right? Just to see if I like it?"

Fang blinked, trying to let that information sink in. "Uh…" she started, not really sure what to say to that. "I dunno. Do you even think men are attractive?" Cause she never once had said anything to that effect before, and Fang was more than aware of her own bisexuality due to the fact that she found both sexes to be pleasing to look at.

Vanille just shrugged again though. "I mean… I guess _he's_ a bit pretty, you think?" she asked, nodding over to a man that was across the bar from them who had long, flowing black locks and scruffy facial hair that accented his defined cheekbones. "Kinda like a horse. I like horses."

Fang didn't really see _that_ comparison outside of the fact that maybe the guy's hair looked a bit like a horse's mane, but she didn't dwell on it; maybe that was the only basis Vanille was using anyway. Instead she paused for a minute, appraising him. He wasn't bad looking at all; actually rather attractive, and Fang was particularly pleased with how many tattoos he had, each of which defined his muscles that were _definitely_ nothing to scoff at.

"I'd do him," she told her honestly after a moment, because fuck it, she would. Vanille looked at her then, her brow rising expectantly.

"You wanna?"

Fang blinked, not entirely certain she heard her right. "—What?"

"We could do him together; it'd be fun," Vanille rationalized and, well, it wasn't as though Fang could argue that point; more than one person in her bed had been a thought that had always appealed to her, but still. "I mean, if I like it anyway. Hopefully. If not, at least you will."

"Thought we weren't fuckin' other people," Fang responded, cause that had been the deal, hadn't it? They couldn't, because it wasn't fair to the other people they slept with.

"Yeah but that was before," Vanille said, like that should have been obvious. "When people couldn't know about us. But people can know about us here, Fang, and we can do it together, so everyone will know what's going on; know that we're each other's firsts, above anyone else. We won't be lying to people."

Fang pursed her lips, considering this. It had been a long time since they had seen one another with someone else, and she wasn't entirely sure how either of them would feel about it. In the end though, if they were _both_ with this person, then there wasn't anything to really feel threatened about, right?

"Please?" Vanille pleaded, looking up at her girlfriend with those big, wide eyes that Fang would have had a problem saying no to, if she wasn't already fairly certain she was about to say yes. "I want to know if I like guys or not. This is _important._ "

"Okay, okay," Fang conceded, chuckling a little at the girl's stressed 'importance' of this. "Whatever you want, yeah? You know that." She looked over at the man they had been discussing earlier, nodding her head in his direction. "You want him?"

Vanille nodded, giving her a little impatient push to get up and go make it happen. "Yeah. Make him come to our room."

"Hey, why me?" Fang asked as she was basically pushed out of her seat, because she had thought this would be a group effort here.

But Vanille just shot her a look like she was being ridiculous for ever thinking _that_ as she told her, "Because everyone wants to have sex with _you_ , silly. You don't even have to try; not like me. Now go make him want us, okay? I'll wait right here."

Fang very much disagreed with Vanille's assessment of her skills or apparently what she believed was a lack thereof, as the girl honestly could just _glance_ in her direction and Fang was ready to bury her face between her thighs; but in the end she conceded to her wishes, because she was the only one who had had experience with a man before. Maybe Vanille was just a little nervous about it, which Fang figured was understandable.

Not that it took much convincing on her part though, as apparently the thought of two women together was something that was rather appealing to the male population. They were headed up to their room in no time, but Fang encouraged the man to go on ahead of them for a moment so she could talk to Vanille alone. "Hey," she addressed softly, her hand tangling in the other woman's once they had some privacy. "If you don't like this we can stop, yeah? I'll just kick him out on his arse."

"No, don't do that," Vanille responded, scrunching up her nose a bit. "I know that you like men and… all their protruding little parts; I don't want you to have to go without it. I can just watch or something."

If Vanille couldn't even say the word 'dick', Fang doubted this was going to go in the way that's enjoyable for both of them. Her lips turned down into a frown. "Vanille, it's not like getting cock is a vital part of living for me; I can go without it."

"But I don't want you to," Vanille said softly, looking up at her as she squeezed their hands together. "There are some things you like that I can't do for you, and that's okay. I want you to have everything you want, okay? You always give me everything that I want, after all. And besides, even if I don't like it with him, then we can just get a girl next time, yeah? Then we can both have some fun."

Fang pursed her lips, but didn't argue with her. Vanille seemed adamant about wanting to please her, and that… that meant something to her. Even if she didn't need dick to survive, she was appreciative that Vanille wanted her to be able to continue to explore all areas of her sexuality, as she was certain they were each other's end all be all. And while Fang would be perfectly content never sleeping with anyone else but Vanille for the rest of her life, they had always been a bit… weird, when it came to sex, hadn't they? Maybe things were just different for them.

Still, some things were more important, and so Fang grasped the back of her head and pulled in her for a short kiss as she relented, "Okay. But if you—if you start to feel uncomfortable or anything, yeah? Jealous or _whatever…_ you tell me, okay? Cause I don't ever want to do anything that's gonna hurt you."

Vanille nodded, and Fang smiled at her before finally leading the girl back to their room, where the man was waiting for them. And at first it was okay; Vanille enjoyed kissing him it seemed, but the second he dropped his pants she said very bluntly, "Ew, never mind, I don't want to play with that," and, well… at least the girl knew where her sexuality stood now. The man seemed offended, and probably rightly so as Vanille's declaration of what she thought of his penis wasn't very delicate, but Fang just rolled her eyes and said, "Oh relax; you're still gonna get off," before she pushed him unceremoniously into a chair and proceeded to go down on him.

Vanille still watched on with interest though, at least finding something erotic in _Fang_ getting off, despite the fact that she wasn't too keen on participating; at least wherein _he_ was touching her, anyhow. In the end she was at least part of it though, wanting Fang to go down on her while he did the brunette from behind, and that made Fang feel a little better about it, as she didn't want Vanille to feel left out or anything, when she would have gladly kicked him out and fucked her all night instead should the girl had just wanted that.

They did take a few women into their bed after that though, which they both seemed to readily enjoy. It wasn't often, but it was enough that they now considered monogamy to not be much of a factor in their relationship anymore. Which it never was, not really; not when their whole relationship started out whilst they were dating other people, but Fang found she liked this better. There was no guilt or complications when they just took someone into their bed for a night, and it made things much simpler. Besides, in the end, it wasn't like they could ever date other people unless they left Oerba, which Fang doubted they would ever do. For better or for worse, Oerba was their home, and Fang, especially, had made a name for herself there that she didn't want to just toss away.

"Fuck," Fang groaned one morning after she glanced at the clock, having been woken up by Vanille's tongue in ear. She shuddered at the feeling, and she turned her head to kiss her briefly before she regrettably told her, "I gotta go…" Already she was running later than she should be; she needed to get some hunting done before she got back to the village. Vanille pouted.

"Can't you stay for a little longer?" she asked softly, hands roaming the brunette's still naked body. She kissed beneath her ear then, her hot breath against her skin incredibly enticing as she allowed her fingers to splay out against the brunette's abdomen. "I had… a _really_ nice dream about you…"

Fang chuckled softly, her voice a little husked from sleep. "You know I'd love to, but I can't come back empty handed." Her gaze flickered over to the form on the other side of Vanille; a blonde woman who was maybe no more than twenty five, who was currently face down in the mattress and snoring lightly. She nodded her head towards her. "Fuck her, yeah? I'm sure she'll let you."

Vanille scrunched up her nose. "…Without you?" she asked, because they had never done that before; the other person had always been present whenever they did something like that. Fang just smirked though, and brought her in for another soft kiss.

"Well I'm pretty damn sure you're not gonna fall madly in love with her when the only thing that makes her your 'type' is that she's hot and has a vagina, so yeah; go for it. Besides…" she continued, grinning wickedly as she pressed her lips against the underside of the other girl's jaw, "if I do end up gettin' jealous over it, most it's gonna make me want to do is fuck you into the bloody floor the next time I see you; stake my claim and all that. You'd like that, yeah?"

Vanille bit her bottom lip, looking very enticed by that prospect; because they did get jealous sometimes, but there was a big difference to them between being jealous and feeling threatened. Jealousy to them was rather mild, and in the end just caused them to viciously fuck the other into submission as they claimed ownership, which was… well, something they both found they rather enjoyed. In the end, it had become almost like a game to them, which probably wasn't anywhere near the scope of normal, but they found enjoyment in it all the same.

Fang didn't know if it was masochistic or what, as surely one wasn't supposed to _like_ those types of feelings, but she found it gave her a bit of a high as she pinned Vanille against a wall the next time she saw her, her tone dangerously low next to her ear as she asked, "How was she…?" Like she was daring her, in a way, to pretend that anyone could ever be as good as she was.

"Mmm…" Vanille murmured, seemingly both appreciative and amused by the possessive tone to her girlfriend's voice. Smirking, Vanille arched her back a little so she could press her hips against the brunette's enticingly, her gaze flickering from Fang's lips to her eyes before she revealed in a somewhat cocky tone, purposely rubbing it in the other woman's face, "She made me come five times…"

Yeah right; Fang knew the girl they had brought back that night didn't have a lot of time before she had to work the next day, and the woman didn't know Vanille's body well enough to pull that off in such a short interval. "Liar."

Vanille rolled her eyes, clearly displeased Fang didn't let her lie to her. "Fine, it was only twice," she told her, which made Fang chuckle softly as she allowed her nails to run up the other girl's pale thighs.

"Figured as much," Fang husked against her skin, dusting her lips across her jawline before she allowed her tongue to sneak out for a small taste, causing the girl trapped beneath her form to shiver. "You and I both know that there's only one person who could make you come that much in such a short amount of time."

"You…" Vanille breathed, sounding a bit lightheaded as Fang's tongue traced the shell of her ear. She whimpered softly then, her fingers fisting in the brunette's sari as her bottom lip got trapped between her teeth and she looked up at her, begging her with her eyes to do it; to _prove_ it. "Only you…"

Fang grasped her girlfriend's chin in her hand then, the unexpectedly rough treatment making Vanille gasp as her eyes darkened with need. "And you better not fuckin' forget it," Fang breathed against her lips, looking down at her like she owned everything that Vanille was, and Anima, the girl just ate it up; she was practically already in a puddle of her own desire as she whimpered pathetically and tried to grind her center against Fang's thigh. The brunette chuckled.

"You want that, huh?" she goaded, still holding Vanille's face rather possessively. Grinning wickedly, feeling a bit high off of her power trip, Fang demanded, "If you want me to make you come five times in a row, then I wanna hear you beg. I wanna hear you bloody _beg_ for me to fuck you, Vanille; because you know no one else can make you scream the way I can. _Say it."_

"No one!" Vanille exhaled all in one breath, sounding rather desperate at this point. She always did like when Fang got dominant with her. "There's no one; no one who can fuck me the way you do, Fang; _please…!"_ And alright, it wasn't ideal – Fang would have preferred much more groveling – but they could work on it.

Later.

Right now, it had been nearly two weeks since the last time they had been able to be alone, and all Fang could think about wanting to do was fuck her into next _year._ Which was probably ridiculous, as when they first began this little escapade there used to be nearly a month or two in between, but they realized that the more that Fang hunted, the more export Vanille had to send out of the village and, well, now the woman did nothing else save hunting and being with Vanille. They were the only two things she enjoyed in life anyway, and it not only came with the perk of enjoying more time with her girlfriend, but also being rather revered in her village, because her efforts were making the clan prosper.

It was a win/win situation, really.

Her tongue invaded Vanille's mouth, causing the younger woman to moan as she grasped for her, fingernails carving lightly reddened lines down the brunette's arms as Fang's hand got lost beneath the fabric of her skirt. But that was as far as they got, as suddenly a loud _bang_ sounded off in the distance, making both women nearly jump clean out of their skin.

"Fuck, what the—what the _fuck_ was that?!" Fang exclaimed, practically pushing herself off of Vanille as she rushed to the window. When she looked out it, she felt her stomach drop to the floor as fear invaded her chest; something far away, something high up in the sky, seemed to be ripping the world to shreds in the distance. Vanille screamed when she saw it, looking terrified beyond measure as Fang instinctively wrapped the girl in her arms.

"We have to go— _now!"_ she shrieked, not having a singular thought outside of protecting Vanille. That thing looked like a winged demon, and the only place it could have come from was Cocoon; if the vipers were attacking, then they would no doubt destroy the villages first, to dwindle their numbers. They couldn't be here.

Taking Vanille's hand in her own, she encouraged the girl to run. The entire village was screaming, panic beginning to ensue as the people watched the demon in the distance destroy everything in its path. "Fang…!" Vanille cried helplessly, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks as she no doubt feared that it would take Oerba next. But Fang couldn't think about that; she couldn't think about their mums or her dad, all she could concern herself with was getting Vanille to safety.

"Don't stop!" Fang told her, tugging on the girl's hand as another loud bang in the distance nearly crippled her in fear. "Come on— _we have to move!"_

They ran for what seemed like ages, but Fang didn't want them to be anywhere near any of the villages. Her lance cut down any creature in their path, most of which thankfully seemed to be just as frightened of the invasion as they were, as there weren't many willing to try to attack them; for the most part, they seemed concerned with just getting the hell out of dodge as well. Fang knew of a cave not a quarter of a day's walk from the last village they were at, a place she used to rest when she was out on long hunts, and so that was where she took her, barely stopping for a rest along the way.

Vanille was shaking when they got there, her eyes wide and fearful although her tears no longer fell. Fang wrapped her in her arms, her heart lurching when another loud bang in the distance caused Vanille to jump. "Come on," she encouraged softly, trying to get her inside, where it was safe.

Or, at least, where she prayed it was safe; in the end, what use was a mere cave against a demon? That thing looked like it was destroying whole villages without any effort, and if it decided to tear down the mountains as well, they'd likely get buried alive in here if not crushed outright. But it was the only place Fang could think of, and she hoped beyond anything that she wasn't leading Vanille to her death as she got her inside.

She led her down the deep cave, bringing her around to a smaller cavern that had a good sized boulder next to it. "In here," she instructed her, her voice sounding hoarse from how much crying she had done as they ran. After Vanille went inside, Fang followed in after her, using all of her strength to move the boulder to block the entrance behind them. Before, when she had come here, it was the only way she could feel safe as she slept; after all, who knew what creatures came in here looking for shelter.

They huddled together in silence for a long while, just trembling in each other's arms as they heard the war echo in the distance. After what seemed like ages though, Vanille finally spoke, her voice hoarse and broken. "Fang… what are we going to do?"

And fuck, she didn't know. "We… we're gonna stay here, yeah?" Fang whispered, wrapping her arms tighter around the girl in her arms. "Until it stops. Until it's safe. I can hunt for our food, and there's… there's a small stream that runs through here for water. We'll be alright. Okay? We'll be alright…"

Fang didn't know how she could promise her that, but that was the only thing she could think to do in that moment.

"What if it never stops…?"

"It has to," Fang assured her, despite not believing her own words. "It's… it's just the initial attack. The vipers they'll—they've gotta regroup at some point, yeah? Or we'll retaliate or… or _something_ okay; we're gonna be alright, I swear to you."

Vanille sniffled, another tear rolling down her cheek as she stared at the cavern walls. "But that wasn't the vipers," she breathed fearfully. "That wasn't l'Cie, was it? It—it had to have been one of their fal'Cie, and what if it—what if it never _stops…"_

"Anima won't let us get wiped out," Fang assured her, tangling her fingers in the girl's hair as she pressed her lips against the top of her head. "And neither will the others, y'hear? Bismarck, Dahaka… all of 'em, they're gonna—they're gonna do somethin' about this, just you watch."

Vanille shook her head, still frightened beyond measure as more sounds of war raged on in the distance. "But that thing can _fly…"_

"So can Dahaka. It won't last long, I'm tellin' you."

It was a feeble hope, but it was the only one Fang had at the moment. She didn't even know if Dahaka knew how to fight, or was even built to do so; it was the only fal'Cie that wasn't tasked by Pulse with the prosperity and protection of their land. It just roamed the skies, seemingly looking for something. No one really knew its true purpose, although some had speculated that it was looking for Etro's gate. Right now though, with so much of their army being on land, that fal'Cie was their only hope of getting that demon out of the sky.

"We'll be alright, yeah?" Fang tried softly, gently rocking her back and forth as she tried to believe her own words. "That thing'll be blasted outta the sky soon, and—and l'Cie will be chosen to save us and it'll be all be alright; I promise you. Cause we knew this was comin', y'know? We knew they'd strike eventually; we're not defenseless. It's all gonna be okay."

But it wasn't okay.

The blasts went on for days, and as Fang and Vanille could barely sleep through them, neither of them were sure how long it really lasted; everything seemed to just blend together. It was farther away at first, but then it got closer, and neither woman ate or drank or even slept as they huddled together and prayed to the Maker that they wouldn't die in that cave. A blast ended up shaking the cavern they were in during the demon's destruction nearby, and as pieces of rock began to chip away, Vanille screamed at Fang to get out of there before the whole thing came tumbling down around them.

It only partially caved in, and neither of them were hurt, but it scared them to bloody death and ended up burying the extra food Fang had saved from her last kill beneath the rubble. And it was hard enough, just getting out of the cave and finding something to kill whilst hearing the whole fucking world come crumbling down around them, but with that thing up above them, with it being that _close_ as it destroyed everything around them, Fang didn't dare leave the safety of the cave.

And so they went hungry for nearly two days.

Neither woman cried anymore though; they had done it so much over the past few days that it was as though they had finally lost all effort for it. They barely spoke either; they just held each other and waited out the attack, wondering if it was ever going to be over, if this was all they were ever going to know now.

Eventually though, it did stop. After the fal'Cie flew overhead and continued its assault towards the north, Fang and Vanille finally ventured outside to get some food and to find a body of water to take a quick bath. And it was then, when they were looking for more supplies in order to survive, that Vanille's eyes widened and she exclaimed, "—Fang!"

Fang whipped around, scared at first that the demon was coming back, or that she wasn't on her guard enough and Vanille had realized that there was something out there hunting _them,_ but the girl just pointed into the sky, seeing the outline of the demon heading back towards its nest. "It's… it's leaving?" Fang asked, not trusting that, because why—why would it just _leave?_

Surely it hadn't destroyed… _everything_ by now? Gran Pulse was… it was large. There was no way. And it didn't look as though their armies had run it off either.

"Fang, we need to—we have to get back to Oerba; we need to see if—!" Vanille tried, practically pulling on her sari, but Fang just grasped her wrist and shook her head. There was no way that they were leaving. Not right now.

"No! I don't—I don't trust that thing's really gone, okay? There's no reason why it'd just go _away_ like that; and I have to—I'm keeping you safe, y'hear? We're not leavin' yet."

Vanille's face crumpled. "But our _parents—!"_

"I know! Okay, _I bloody know!"_ Fang exclaimed, sounding frustrated and upset herself. She didn't mean to snap at her, but it just happened and a singular tear fell down Vanille's cheek that made Fang's heart break entirely in half. Turning towards her, Fang placed comforting hands on the girl's arms and bent over at the waist to better face Vanille at her own height.

"Hey," she tried softly, her brow softening in distress. "I want to go back too, okay? More than fuckin' anything else. I hate not knowin' what happened to them, but I need to keep you safe. Do you understand me? I love you, and I—I have to keep you _safe_ , Vanille; I have to…!" Her voice was beginning to get a little frantic, because fuck, she couldn't lose her, she _couldn't…_ and Vanille looked at her sadly for a long moment before she moved, throwing her arms around her neck as she began to cry again.

So much for believing that they were all out of tears.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she breathed against her neck, wetness staining Fang's neck as she held the brunette close to her body. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go. We were supposed to be happy; everything was supposed to be okay…"

"It will…"

"—It _won't."_

"It has to," Fang countered softly, because she didn't know what else to believe in that moment. She had to believe that this wasn't the end, because they were just… they were so _young._ They were supposed to grow old together – her and Vanille, together until the bloody end – not die before either of them could even make it to twenty five.

Because even though the demon may have stopped, this wasn't the end. If the vipers didn't come back to finish the job, then what was left of Gran Pulse would attack, and a great war would begin that Fang, at the very least, knew that she would be dragged into. She was a Huntress; able-bodied and strong. They would want her to fight. She would _have_ to fight.

And who knew if she would even come out of it alive.

Fang tried not to dwell on that though, and the time did eventually come where they headed back for Oerba. The demon did not strike again, and all seemed calm in the aftermath of Cocoon's rage-filled storm. Fang was still worried that the moment they chose to head back would be the moment that the vipers would strike again, but Vanille couldn't bear not knowing what happened to their family, and after keeping her in the cave for a little more than a week since the demon's departure, Fang had to eventually relent to allowing the return trip home. Vanille was insistent about it.

And in the end, they couldn't stay hauled up in that cave forever; they needed—they needed to know if everyone was alright back home… or if they even had a home to go back to. They just needed answers, and a reason, and a _plan_. They needed to know what had happened, and what was coming next.

When they got to Oerba though, half the village was practically in ruins. It looked as though a singular blast took out the east side of it, and Fang's heart lodged in her throat as Vanille's hand tightened in her own and the girl audibly gasped at the sight of it. And then they were running full speed towards the borders, frantic in their search for their parents. Their houses were on the west side, which looked to be intact at least, but it was obvious that the village suffered massive devastation, and no doubt countless causalities.

Fang prayed to anyone who would listen that their family was okay.

"Mum!" Fang screamed as she ran into the village. _"Dad!"_

There were people around, trying desperately to rebuild and regroup in the aftermath of the attack, but none that Fang and Vanille were looking for. At least, not at first. Someone heard them screaming though as they searched the village, and finally Nymira exited one of the buildings, looking like she saw a ghost once her eyes fell on Fang and Vanille.

"You're alive…" she breathed, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her eyes welled up with tears, and her hand went to her mouth before she began running towards the two girls, exclaiming, "Thank the Maker, you're both _alive!"_ And then they were being enveloped in a big hug, the woman beginning to cry as the two girls clung to her, almost in shock themselves from actually finding one of their parents alive and well.

"My baby girl…" Nymira cried, kissing the top of Vanille's head as she held onto her like she never wanted to let her go. She looked at Fang then, tears sliding down the contours of her cheeks as she touched the brunette's face and breathed, "Thank you… thank you for keeping her safe…" Because in the end, Nymira didn't care why or how they ended up together during all of this; she was just thankful that her daughter had come back to her in one piece. Right now, that was the only thing that mattered.

"Where's my mum?" Fang asked, looking around frantically for her; because if Nymira was around, then her mum had to be too, right? But just the mere mention of her mother looked like it broke something inside the other woman, and Fang's stomach twisted painfully in her gut as she demanded, "Nymira, _where is my mum?!"_

"Fang…"

No. No, no, no, _no!_ She knew that tone, and she couldn't—where was her mum?!

"Where is she?! She can't—she was with you, wasn't she? _Tell me she was with you!"_

Another tear slid down the woman's cheek, and she looked at her regrettably as she tried, "Fang, I'm—I'm so sorry…" But Fang was shaking her head, ripping herself out of Nymira's hold as she looked at her like she was a terrible person for lying to her like this, because it couldn't be real; her mother… she wasn't…

"She was… she was trying to help the elderly evacuate when it—when it came, and the blast it…"

"No," Fang denied, furiously shaking her head as she backed away from her. " _No_ , she—she can't be… she's _not…"_ A shuddered sob escaped her lips then, and Fang had to cover her mouth to try to stifle it as she tried to keep herself upright.

She couldn't be dead. She just couldn't be. They didn't—they never had a chance to reconcile. A part of Fang never forgave her mother for forcefully separating her and Vanille, and she had been distant and cold to her ever since. She was just angry, and bitter, and she wanted desperately for her mother to understand and to care more about her happiness than what the rest of the damn clan would think, but she didn't.

And in the end, _that_ was what Fang was left with? It couldn't be real, because while she and her mum had never been close in the way that she and her father had, she still loved her. She still wanted, one day, for things to work out. But now they… now they never _would,_ and she… she…

"I need my dad," she sobbed, unable to keep it together as she shook and cried and felt herself practically revert to no more than a little girl, desperate for her parents to make it better. "I need—get my dad, _please,_ I just need—"

But Nymira just looked at her sadly, like she couldn't bear to tell her that he wasn't around either, and suddenly Fang couldn't hold herself upwards anymore. She collapsed to her knees on the ground, being wrapped in Vanille's embrace in an instant as she struggled to find her breath. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be fucking real; it was just a dream, just some fucked up dream and she was going to wake up any minute now. She had to, she had to…!

"Fang, he… he left, to fight, when the demon came from the sky; he might still be alive, we don't know—" Nymira tried, but Fang could barely hear her. She was practically choking on the force of her own tears, and Vanille was cradling her head against her chest as she tried to calm her, despite the news having seemed to have broken something in her as well.

They were both crying, they were both a mess, and they had both suffered loss; because in the end, Fang's family was Vanille's family too, and they had lost more than half of it today. Because Fang wasn't—she wasn't _stupid._ That thing flew back to Cocoon of its own volition, which meant that it probably wiped out any army it came across. And Maker, she felt like she couldn't breathe. Her dad, her _dad…_

Orin was… was her best fucking friend. Her dad was everything to her, and Fang didn't know how she was supposed to face each day without him now. Because she was too afraid to hope; too afraid to believe that he would come home to her, because if he didn't then it would just break her even more. Her parents… they were never coming back to her.

She was an orphan.

 **TBC…**


	7. VII

**VII.**

The next day, Fang couldn't bring herself to even get out of bed. She just lay there, staring at the wall, with Vanille nestled behind her. She barely cried anymore, having exhausted all of her tears crying herself to sleep the night before; instead she just stared blankly at an imperfection in the plaster, half expecting her mother to burst in and scream at her for being too touchy with Vanille.

But she never came.

Fang couldn't go back to her father's house, as being surrounded by things that reminded her of him would no doubt cause her to hope that he was still alive, when she was all too aware that there was only a slim chance that he survived. And perhaps it was terrible, to believe the worst had happened, but what else could she do? If Fang convinced herself that Orin was still alive out there somewhere, then every single day he didn't return it would break her just a little bit further; break her until she was completely shattered, and there was nothing left.

False hope, in the end, was far crueler than pessimism.

Vanille's lips covered the large tattoo on her right forearm, gently kissing her as she held her against her chest. "You made him proud, y'know," she told her softly, fingertips gently tracing the lines on her skin that marked her as a Huntress. "Your mum too, even though she never really said much about it. But I remember the look on her face when you passed your Trials, y'know? And she was… she was really happy for you, Fang. Really, really happy."

Fang took a shuddered inhale of breath, her eyes falling closed for a moment as she breathed, "I've barely spoken to her in years, Van; however she once felt about me, I doubt it was like that when she died."

"She loved you," Vanille argued softly, but Fang just shrugged as she exhaled a long sigh.

"Maybe. But there's still a part of me that's bitter that she basically told me I couldn't be happy, solely because she was. She's dead… and a part of me is still angry about it. That's so fucked up."

Vanille pursed her lips, gently resting them against her shoulder for a moment. "I just don't think she understood," she said finally, quietly. "No one did, really; 'cept your dad. Are you mad at everyone else too?"

"No one else knew."

"But if they did?"

Fang pursed her lips, lightly chewing on the inside of her cheek. "They're not my mum," she said finally. "Mums are supposed to love and support you, yeah? _Want_ you to be happy and shit. Mine didn't."

"Neither did mine," Vanille reminded her, letting her know that she wasn't alone in how bitter and angry she felt about that. "But I know she still loves me. She just… she doesn't understand, and that's not her fault. Sometimes people see too much of their own worlds to be able to see other people's."

At the mention of Nymira, Fang's eyes turned towards the door. "We shouldn't be like this," she told Vanille, noting the position they were in. "All up in one another's shit. If she comes in, we're screwed, and I can't handle somethin' like that; not right now."

"I'm not leaving you."

"I'm not sayin' go anywhere, I'm just—"

"No," Vanille responded strongly, causing Fang's brow to rise in surprise as she turned in her arms to look at her. Vanille swallowed. "We're not… we don't have anything tying us together like that anymore," she said softly, unable to say out loud that because Lelani was dead, they couldn't be taken as sisters any longer. "So I'm tying us together in a different way, and I don't care what she says. You're mine, Fang; and you're sad right now, and I'm not going to leave you. I'm never, ever leaving you."

The conviction in her voice struck something inside of Fang and, in feeling incredibly grateful for her, she leaned up and gently pressed their lips together. And it wasn't anything more than that, barely a step above chaste, but it made Vanille smile all the same as she touched her face and looked down at her. And it was there that they stayed for quite a long while, just wrapped in one another's embrace, until Nymira did finally rap gently on her daughter's bedroom door before coming in.

She stopped short at the position they were in, but Vanille just glanced at her mother as she made a point to wrap her arms tighter around Fang's form, holding the woman to her chest as she warned her, "Mum, don't." Her fingers weaved in darkened locks then, practically cradling Fang's head protectively as she awaited her mother's reaction.

But Nymira just sighed softly. Her eyes were reddened and splotchy; she looked like she had been crying for days on end. "I won't," she promised softly, sounding much too exhausted to argue right now anyway. And perhaps it was only because she knew that with Lelani gone that the two girls in the bed could no longer be technically considered sisters, or maybe she was just so thankful that Fang had brought her daughter back alive that she didn't want to seem ungrateful by separating them, but either way, Nymira didn't seem to be in the right frame of mind to go against anything right now. "I just… wanted to know if either of you wanted some tea."

Vanille looked down at Fang, waiting for her to answer. It took a long moment, but in the end Fang realized she couldn't just hold herself up in her girlfriend's bedroom all day, and so she finally said, "…Fine;" voice hoarse and broken from her own crippling emotions. Vanille smiled at her softly though, and gently kissed her shoulder before she led her out into the common area of the house.

They sat side by side on the couch as Nymira busied herself in the open kitchen, getting the kettle off one of the burners. As she poured the hot liquid into the glass, she spoke, her voice sounding tired and broken, "Your father knew… didn't he?"

And Fang, knowing exactly what she was speaking of, didn't have the effort right then to lie to her. "…Yes." Because in the end, what did it matter now?

Nymira swallowed, nodding a little as her voice broke her throat. "When the demon came, your mother and I were so… we were so _terrified_ that we would never see either of you again. But he told us not to worry, that no matter what, you would keep each other safe. Orin was so… _adamant_ of the fact that neither of you would come to any harm, despite the fact that neither of you were even supposed to be with one another at the time. We thought he was just trying to have hope so that he wouldn't be consumed with the same fear that we were, but you always had been, weren't you? You'd always been together, behind our backs. For… for _years_ now."

Vanille swallowed, looking a little guilty from how that sounded out loud. "We just wanted to be happy, Mumma," she whispered, tangling her fingers in Fang's hand as she held it firmly. "We didn't want to lie, but we didn't know what else to do."

Nymira's lips pursed into a thin line, her brow crinkling with emotion as she picked up the two mugs from off the counter. "Doesn't matter much now, does it?" she breathed sadly, her eyes beginning to water again before she forced herself to take a shuddered inhale of breath, trying to calm herself down as she turned to bring them their beverages.

But once she placed them on the small table in front of the two girls, something seemed to break inside of her and she released a shuddered sob as she bent down before them. "Please don't—please don't leave," she begged, tears running down her face, the sentence so unexpected that both girls looked like they couldn't understand where that was coming from. "You both are—you're all I have _left_ and I couldn't bear it, I couldn't…!"

"What?" Vanille asked, her brow crinkling. "Mum, we aren't—we're not going anywhere," she tried to assure her, but Nymira was just shattering in front of them, too consumed with her grief and her fear.

"We were just trying to do what we thought was best," she tried to explain, wiping another fallen tear off her cheek. "We didn't think it was healthy because of… because of the way you were raised, but maybe we were wrong; maybe we screwed everything up, and I'm so, so sorry for doing this to you both. I'm so sorry, please don't go…!"

"Nymira, we're not goin' anywhere, okay?" Fang tried, but the woman was just shaking her head and covering her face with her hands.

"I loved your mother, she was—she was _everything_ to me, but we were selfish," Nymira breathed sadly, moving her hands to look at Fang apologetically. "I wouldn't blame you, if you left; if you wanted to make a life together somewhere where you wouldn't be judged but please, _please—"_

"Mum… Mumma, stop it," Vanille begged, her voice cracking with emotion as she took her mother's hands in her own. "We're not leaving, okay? Cross our hearts. But we're not… we're not hiding anymore either. The world rained fire and I'm _not—"_ But she stopped for a moment, trying to get a hold of her own emotions as she took a deep breath and told Nymira strongly, "If this is the end, then I'm spending it with her. I don't care what anyone else says. I love her. I'll love her 'til the end of the world."

But Vanille lost the battle with her emotions then, and suddenly she looked so much like a little girl again as she kind of shrunk into herself and said with a tiny voice, sounding so unsure and scared, "Will you— _are_ you… ashamed of me?"

Because maybe they shouldn't have grown to love each other like that, not with how they grew up, but it happened all the same. There was no changing that; not anymore.

" _No,"_ Nymira responded strongly, holding her daughter's hands tighter. "No, honey; of course not. I'm so sorry I told you that you didn't know what love was; that was cruel and thoughtless of me. Sometimes, when you're an adult, you forget what it was like to be young. But honestly… it's not all that different, and I'm sorry for diminishing your feelings. I'm so sorry I didn't listen to you."

She swallowed then, trying to force a tiny smile in her daughter's direction as she finished, "Besides… if anyone is so _damned_ concerned about how you both feel about one another, then they really don't have their priorities straight, do they? Because we're at… we're at _war_ now; that's the only thing anyone should be worrying about, because this isn't—it isn't over. It's so very far from it."

Nymira covered her face then, the reality of war washing over her as she breathed, "Fuck," into her hands, seemingly having nothing else but swears to express herself, when once she rarely ever said such things, at least in front of them. "Fuck," she repeated, another tear sliding down her cheek as she looked at the two girls on the couch. "l'Cie will be chosen soon," she told them; a reality neither girl wanted to face, as they knew they were both in the age range to be candidates. "You both need to be prepared if… if you get that honor…"

The way Nymira said it though, it didn't sound like she thought it was an honor at all. They were supposed to – believe that it was a huge honor to be chosen, that is – because l'Cie were practically sacred amongst their people. However, in the end, it was still nothing more than a death sentence, and everyone knew that. And so Vanille immediately paled, looking at Fang in fear because out of the both of them, they both knew that Fang was a more likely candidate, being a Huntress and all. Or, at least, that was what they assumed; in the end, it had been so long since l'Cie were chosen that neither of them really knew the requirements. All they knew was that if they were chosen, then the priests would come for them. That was it.

"Train her," Nymira begged, looking at Fang desperately. " _Please._ She—she doesn't know how to fight, and if you… if either of you…" Another tear slid down her cheek then, and she wiped it away, trying to be strong, because Gran Pulse needed champions now; they needed l'Cie to save them. In the end, they all knew they had to look at the bigger picture, no matter how frightening it may seem. "Eternal crystal is better than becoming cie'th," she breathed, trying to justify it, yet sounding as though she hated herself for doing so. "Please make her ready… just in case."

"It won't be us," Vanille tried to assure her, because right then she needed to hope that it wouldn't be; it might be the only way to stay sane. It might be the only way she wouldn't be afraid. "There's so many… _other_ people in the world, right? People who would be better for it. The fal'Cie doesn't want us. We're… we're nobody."

Fang swallowed hard. She wanted to believe Vanille, but how could she, when she was one of the clans most revered Hunters? Maybe in the end she wouldn't be l'Cie material, but she definitely wasn't a nobody. Right then though, she wished she was. Still, the last thing she was going to do was leave Vanille defenseless during a time of war, and so she still promised Nymira in a soft voice, "I will. I'll train her, I promise. Just… just in case."

"Fang…" Vanille tried, because she probably didn't want to face the harsh reality of it, but the brunette just shook her head.

"Your mum's right. We don't—no one knows, y'know? How or why l'Cie are really chosen. I'm not leavin' you defenseless; I won't."

Vanille swallowed, but after looking at her for a long while, finally nodded her head in acknowledgement that this was something she had to do. So they trained; nearly every day for a month, waiting for the sky to open up again and fire to rain down on them from the viper's nest, but it never came. It was as though for some reason, Cocoon had purposely provoked them, and was now waiting for them to retaliate. But they hadn't yet, and that infuriated Fang.

Her fist hit the side of the house as she looked up at the nest above them, shouting furiously, "Why the _fuck_ haven't we ripped it out of the damn sky yet?!" It was a question she knew Vanille didn't actually have an answer to, but every day that passed and nothing happened, the worse Fang got.

Her father still hadn't come home, and while a large part of her never expected him to, there was still that small light of hope that shone inside of her regardless of how often she told herself that she needed to let it go. But no one that had left that day had returned; including not her only her father but Galain as well – amongst countless others – and so they never had a definitive answer. Perhaps they never would, and Fang tried to force herself to face the reality that so many people she once cared about were now dead, even though the little girl inside of her who just wanted her dad continued to make her cry herself to sleep every night, praying that maybe, just this once, she was wrong.

She wasn't fucking wrong though, and that broke her. Anger was easier to deal with though, and so the Huntress raged because it was the only thing that she could pretend made her feel better; feel less out of control, less like a damned victim of circumstance and tragedy.

Vanille pursed her lips as she looked at her, not really knowing how to make it better. Still, she tried with, "Maybe… maybe the right people haven't been chosen yet."

" _Clearly,_ since nothing's fuckin' happened," Fang snapped back, running a frustrated hand through her hair. "What the hell is the point of makin' l'Cie if they're not even gonna use them?"

Because they had; the priests had come for only two people in their clan thus far, but the process had begun. And yet, still, nothing changed. Was everyone such shit at completing their Focus? Because maybe Anima needed a better fucking screening process or something; obviously whoever had been chosen either weren't good enough, or weren't even being used yet. What were the fal'Cies doing, _stockpiling?_

"You don't… remember the prophecy?" Vanille asked, sounding a little surprised. Fang's brow furrowed though, as that clearly did not ring any bells for her. "We learned it in school," Vanille tried to remind her. "This guy, he was… a messenger of some kind, I think? He said that after the War of Transgression, that the beast Ragnarok would be the one to bring down Cocoon."

Fang rolled her eyes. "You know it's just a crackpot theory someone once had; there's been a shit ton about how our war with the vipers would inevitably go. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen." Still, it did seem to fit; the prophecy mentioned two girls from the far north being the ones to bring the nest down from the sky, and the two people who were chosen by the priests _had_ been girls. Regardless, it could just be a coincidence.

Vanille just shrugged a little though, before rolling her ankle and clasping her hands behind her back before she pointed out, "Maybe, but people are still calling the war that."

"That wasn't a fucking war," Fang responded furiously, shaking her head before she looked up at the nest in the sky and told her, "that was a massacre." Because all they had were dead bodies and destroyed homes; they hadn't even made a _dent_ in that damn thing in the sky yet. Cocoon hadn't suffered loss like they had.

Her jaw clenched then, fury boiling in the pit of her stomach before she said something she knew she probably shouldn't. "A part of me hopes I'm chosen," she admitted, even though she wanted it for all the wrong reasons; even though she knew it was something people didn't come back from. She refused to acknowledge that part at the moment though; she was just angry, and she just wanted them all dead. "I'd tear that thing right out of the fuckin' sky; Ragnarok or not. I don't _care!_ "

"Fang, no!" Vanille exclaimed fearfully, rushing to cover the girl's mouth; like she was afraid from this far away from the temple, Anima could still hear them. "Please don't—please don't ever _wish_ for things like that…" she begged softly, looking up at her with a frightened gaze. "I know you're mad. I know they… that they took _everything_ from you, but please don't—don't let them take _you_ from me too…"

Vanille looked like she was on the verge of tears, and it caused the brunette's heart to clench in her chest. "Shit," Fang swore lightly, not wanting to upset her. She was just… she was so fucking angry, all the time now, and she just couldn't—she didn't know how to deal with it. She touched her girlfriend's face though, gently resting her forehead against hers as she apologized, "I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean it. I don't… I _never_ want to leave you, you know that. I just… I hate them, Vanille. I fuckin' _hate_ them…"

"I know," Vanille breathed, looking up into her eyes as she cradled the hand on her cheek with her own hand. It was a rather intimate gesture, and it caused the few people who were around them to blatantly stare. The two girls tried to ignore them though, refusing to keep hiding behind closed doors when they weren't even doing anything wrong by being with one another. Even if they might have been once, which was a big _if,_ after what had happened, they were no longer sisters; at least not in the traditional sense.

An emotional sense was a different story though; Fang believed she would always think of Vanille as not only her sister, but her lover and her best friend for the rest of her life. The same blood might not run through their veins, but they shared the same soul. Vanille was everything to her, all of those things and more, and that was too good a thing to have to ruin by being ashamed of it. Screw what other people thought; they were wrong anyway.

Most people kept their opinions to themselves about it though, save the few disgusted looks thrown in their directions, or whispers behind their hands. In the end, they all had more important things to worry about than the questionable relationship between two former quasi-sisters in their clan. However, of course someone chose _that_ moment to finally speak up as they were passing by; which Fang would have been surprised by, considering the distance people generally put between themselves and the rather unorthodox situation, but when she looked up to see who it was, she wasn't shocked by who she was greeted by.

"Defecting sister-fucker," Jex muttered as he passed by the two of them, looking at Fang like she was something vile; something to be ashamed of. Generally him and Fang didn't speak much, despite both of them being Hunters now, as once she joined their ranks they both seemed to subscribe to the theory of personal space and staying the hell away from people you didn't like. However, with only a few of them left in Oerba, that didn't seem to work out as well as it used to.

Fang pulled away from Vanille then, her expression masking over with hatred as she asked, "The fuck did you just say to me?"

Jex stopped, pursing his lips in anger before he nodded his head towards her in challenge and said, "You heard me." Taking a step forward, he continued, "Awfully fuckin' convenient, wasn't it, that you weren't around when the demon came? Probably ran off with your slut of a sister; hid somewhere while the world came fallin' down on our bloody heads. Heard you two came back with each other; don't pretend that was just a coincidence, cause ain't none of us here that damn stupid."

Fang's eyes flashed, and in an instant her fist was wrapped in the fabric of Jex's shirt as she practically manhandled him against the side of the house. Vanille shouted something at her; probably to let him go, to not let this turn violent, but Fang couldn't hear her. All she could hear was how royally pissed off she was.

"I was out on a bloody hunt you cock-mouthed little piss-ant!" Fang shouted, furious that he thought she had defected. She would _never._ "And everyone knew it, so don't give me this shit; I was too fuckin' far away to get back here in time, so _yeah_ I went after Vanille instead. She, at least, I knew I could save; I'm not gonna bloody apologize for that."

"But what about you, huh?" Fang snarled, her hands being pushed off by Jex in a furious rage. Still, she kept him trapped there, right in his face. "Where the fuck were you, when everyone else stepped up to try to fight that thing? Cowering in a little hole, wetting your damned pants? Why the _fuck_ are you still here, when so many people I care about are _dead!?"_

"If we had all left, the village would have _starved!"_ Jex tried to rationalize, which was true, as they had very little grain, and fruits and vegetables were mainly imported from other clans, but Fang just scoffed in his face, not believing for a second that he would have been willing to leave with the rest of them… to fight and die with them. He'd always been a coward.

"Yeah, and I bet you were number fuckin' one on the signup sheet to stay behind weren't you?" Fang sneered, her eyes scanning his face judgmentally. "You've always been bloody useless and you know it; barely passed your Trials, always bringing back the least out of the rest of us. So don't ever fuckin' come at me like _I'm_ the Hunter this clan should be ashamed of, when we both know that even when I fuck my 'sister', _I still hold more respect than someone like you."_

Jex's eyes flashed then, and the punch Fang had been anticipating since the beginning of this little conversation was finally thrown. Vanille shouted something unintelligible and another Hunter ran towards them to intervene rather quickly, but Fang didn't much care; she was just so… she was so _angry_ and _hurt_ and all she wanted to do was tear the bloody world apart and yeah, Jex was a good place to start. Due to the tragedy that had befallen them, emotions were running high everywhere, and their fight was hardly the first in the village to break out. Still, given her position in the clan, she should have known better; they _both_ should have. After it was through, one of the Elders bluntly told them that they had embarrassed themselves and embarrassed their people and they both slunk away afterwards, thoroughly ashamed of themselves and their actions.

Honestly, Fang didn't even know what she was doing anymore; she just wanted to destroy everything that she touched.

Which was proven with a blinding clarity as while she was sparring with Vanille one day, her fist ended up brutally colliding with the redhead's face. Fang was supposed to be pulling her punches substantially so as to not end up hurting her, but the longer the spar went on the more worked up she got and the never-ending aggression that she had been trying to keep locked inside of her ever since that incident with Jex just seemed to explode outwards, causing her to hit the other girl with much more force than she had originally intended.

"Shit!" Fang exclaimed, instantly filled with a terrible sense of guilt and apology as she knelt down next to the other girl, who ended up being sprawled on the ground after the force of the blow. " _Shit_ , Vanille; are you okay? I'm so sorry!"

"It's—I'm fine," Vanille tried to assure her, holding her hand over her face as she allowed Fang to help her into a seated position. "I should have ducked; I'm usually faster than you."

But when she pulled her hand away from her face both girls saw that it was covered in blood, the punch having given her a bloody nose. "Fuck," Fang swore, feeling absolutely horrible about what she had done. "Here, look up like this, yeah? And pinch it; that way the blood won't run down your face. We need to get you inside."

She helped her up then, despite Vanille's protests that she was fine – that she could survive a bit of blood – and led her back into the house. Regardless of if she could survive it or not, it shouldn't have happened in the first place and Fang knew she had to make it right. She loved Vanille; the last thing she wanted to do was hurt her in any way, and she hated herself in that moment for doing so, even if it was only accidental.

She just—sometimes, she felt like she was losing control, and she didn't know what to do. She hated being so fucking angry all the time, but how else would someone feel when both of their parents were lost in an attack that had yet to even have a retaliation? They deserved vengeance, retribution, whatever the hell you wanna call it, and yet Cocoon just sat there up in the sky, completely untouched.

Logically, Fang knew that Gran Pulse's army was mostly ground-based, as for some reason, they never really fathomed an aerial attack. In the end, everyone seemed far more concerned with their lands getting invaded by the vipers; stolen from them as they wiped out its true inhabitants and took their home as their own once the unstable environment perched in the sky inevitably came tumbling down.

Did Gran Pulse even _have_ any war vessels that could fly? Fang didn't know, but she was infuriated that it was taking this damn long for them to build them, or for the fal'Cie to choose _competent_ l'Cie that could finally give Cocoon what was coming to them.

She hated just _sitting_ here and doing nothing, despite knowing full-well that if she was chosen to actually do something, that there was a slim chance that she'd be coming home. That she'd be coming back… to Oerba, to—to _Vanille_. Fang didn't want that, but a part of her understood that some things were just more important. Still, she wasn't about to go off half-cocked and offer herself to the fal'Cie, because in reality, what could she do, _really?_ She might be a lot of things, but l'Cie material was not one of them.

"I'm sorry," Fang apologized for the umpteenth time once she had Vanille on the couch, a rag in her hand to help soak up the blood. Vanille took it from her and pressed it to her nose as she continued to put pressure on it, her words coming out a little muffled as she spoke.

"Looks worse than it is, Fang; s'okay."

"Doesn't matter; I should have more control over myself. There's no fucking excuse for hittin' you like that."

"You're sad," Vanille responded softly, looking at the woman across from her sympathetically. "You're sad and you're scared and you don't know what to do, so you get angry instead, and sometimes you don't know what to do with that either; it's okay."

"No, no it's—it's fucking _not_ okay, Vanille," Fang responded strongly, feeling her throat tighten around her words. Trust Vanille to know what was really going on with her without her having to say a word, but still; that didn't mean that it was a viable excuse for losing control, even momentarily. "None of this is… it's not fucking okay at all. We're bloody sitting here in… in _ruins_ , and I have to train you in combat when you shouldn't—I don't _want_ you to be a part of this, Vanille; I don't. I can't…"

Her voice hitched in her throat then, the reality of what they were doing washing over her as tears stung the back of her eyes and Fang continued, her voice coming out angry and blameful despite the sorrow in her expression, "I _can't_ have you be another casualty of this war. I can't, I just fuckin' can't…!"

"Fang…" Vanille tried softly, biting gently on her lower lip before she pulled the rag from her face, momentarily checking to see if she was still bleeding. It didn't seem like it. And yet instead of cleaning off her face, she put down the rag before grasping her girlfriend's hands in her own, trying to garner her full attention as she requested, "Look at me."

Fang's eyes met hers then, her lips pursed in a thin line as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Vanille's face still had blood on it, but it seemed the girl couldn't care much for that in that moment as she reached out and touched her lover's face, her palm warm against the brunette's skin. "I'm not going anywhere," she told her, sounding so assured of that that Fang desperately wanted to believe her. And then the girl smiled, this reassuring gesture that was both gentle yet strong, as Vanille continued, "And even if I do, then it's okay, cause I know you'll go with me."

"Vanille, that's not—that's not how it works…" Fang countered softly, because despite her foolish, momentary thoughts of offering herself up to the fal'Cie, that wasn't how l'Cie were chosen. The priests came to _you,_ not the other way around. And if they didn't come for both of them…

"It doesn't matter," Vanille told her, still giving her a gentle smile as her thumb brushed the corner of Fang's eye, wiping away the first sign of a tear before it could fall. "We're forever, you and me; the whole universe knows it, so the fal'Cie must know it too. We're not meant to be kept apart, so if… if one of us gets chosen, then the other's gotta too, y'know? Cause Ragnarok, it's made up of two people, so wouldn't it make sense if it was made up of two people who shared a heart?"

Despite the frightening thought of _them_ being the ones to become such an instrument for destruction, an incredible warmth filled Fang's chest at the girl's words, and she took Vanille's hand in her own as she placed it against her lips, kissing each finger in turn as she looked at her. "You _are_ my heart," the Huntress told her passionately, needing her to know that, despite anything else that may happen. She wasn't certain if Vanille was just trying to make her feel better, or if she really believed with her all her heart that the world would never be able to truly separate them, but in that moment, it didn't matter. "You're my everything, yeah? Forever and always, love. I bloody swear to you."

"I know, silly," Vanille responded, giggling a little like Fang was being foolish for having to reiterate something like that as she gently encouraged the woman towards her. "So stop being scared, okay? Everything will work out how it's supposed to; you'll see." She smiled again, and it seemed to be infectious as she gently pressed their lips together, holding Fang close to her.

Vanille once said that she felt safe in Fang's arms; because she was bigger, because she was strong… because she could envelop her and keep her protected. But in the end, it was Fang who derived comfort from it just as often despite the girl's size, because it wasn't a physical safety that she needed from her, it was emotional. And Vanille, she was… she was very good at making the world seem so much brighter than it was; so much less scary than its current horrors made it.

"You taste like blood," Fang told her through kisses, chuckling a little at the horrified look that crossed her girlfriend's face at those words. But it was all over her upper lip from when her nose had been gushing, and Fang's mouth covered that spot as she cleaned her off in a way that made Vanille squeal.

"Ew, no, Fang; let me get it off!"

Fang laughed, but allowed Vanille to pull away to at least wipe off what she could with the back of her hand. "Not sayin' I hated it," she mentioned, which made Vanille wrinkle her nose. "What? Not like I'd actively go around lickin' off other people's or anything; just sayin' I don't mind yours, is all."

"You're gross," Vanille told her, like she was chiding a small child before she moved the back of her hand, looking at her girlfriend as she asked, "Is it all gone now?" Fang smirked, but licked her thumb before gently wiping off the last of it on the girl's skin before nodding that yes, it was gone now.

Vanille bit her bottom lip softly before she took Fang's hand in hers, tangling their fingers together before gently coaxing their linked hands down to her lap. "You're going to bring back something just for us from your next hunt, right? So I can cook you something special for your birthday?"

While the thought made Fang smile softly, she shook her head and told her, "Vanille, you don't have to—"

"But I want to," Vanille interrupted; her voice strong, like it was important to her. And while usually birthdays for them weren't the biggest deal in the world, Fang realized why this one might be; Vanille wasn't certain how many they would have left together. It was such an incredibly depressing thought, but Vanille wouldn't let it consume the woman in front of her as she brought their linked hands up to her lips, kissing the back of Fang's hand. "I mean, twenty one seems… important, doesn't it?"

"Not any more than twenty did," Fang responded, because she couldn't really see how Vanille could find something important in such an age; the only one that truly mattered to her was sixteen, as it was when she was considered of age and was able to participate in the Trials to become a Huntress. What was twenty one, really?

Nothing, save what Vanille needed it to be, apparently.

But Vanille shook her head. "No, it's special; I can feel it," she told her, conviction in her voice. Perhaps in the end though, she only wished it was special to give her a reason to make a big deal out of it. This clearly seemed important to her. "Okay? So just bring me back something I can cook; whatever you want."

And so despite not believing the birthday was a big deal herself, Fang eventually relented with a nod, because it was far more important to her to give Vanille a reason to smile. If the girl needed this, to try to find some normality in their shitty situation, to try to give Fang something special just in case something terrible was to happen later on, then she would let her. Maybe, in the end, she needed this just as much as Vanille did anyway.

It couldn't hurt, at the very least.

But when the time came to return to the village with her spoils from her last hunt, instead of being greeted by Vanille, she was confronted by the sight of Nymira, who was barreling towards her at top speed whilst desperately screaming her name. Fang's heart immediately went into her throat as she quickly dismounted from her chocobo, her feet hitting the sand just as Nymira crossed the last of the distance between them. The woman's face was etched in distress, tears were sticking to her cheeks, and quiet suddenly, Fang felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Vanille— _where's Vanille?!"_ Fang demanded, her voice choking up in her throat around the question, because she knew there would only be one reason why Nymira would act this way, and it was entirely centered around her daughter's wellbeing.

Nymira's hand clasped around Fang's forearm as she steadied herself and struggled for breath, practically gasping out, "They—they took her…!"

" _Who?"_ Fang exclaimed; angrily, fearfully. "Nymira, what the fuck happened? Where is she; _how long ago was this?!"_

"The… priests," Nymira breathed, more tears leaking from her eyes as she looked up at Fang desperately; helplessly. "About a half-day ago; they—Fang, they took her; they took my baby, they took my baby girl…!" She dissolved into sobs then, unable to speak any longer as the fear for her daughter took ahold of her. Fang had to steady the woman before she completely collapsed on the ground, forced to become a rock for someone when she felt like she could barely breathe herself.

This couldn't be real; if either of them were to be chosen, it should have been _her._ She was the Huntress, she was the one with the real training; Vanille might be able to hold her own now, but it was only just barely. What the fuck was the fal'Cie _thinking;_ what the hell was the logic in choosing someone like Vanille, when there were many other able-bodied villagers in Oerba? She was barely more than a child, and she just wasn't—she _couldn't…_

"No… no, _fuck_ that," Fang exclaimed passionately, infuriated and terrified by this turn of events as she held Vanille's mother tighter to her form. "No, they can't have her!"

There had been a point once, where Fang assumed she would be able to look at the bigger picture; where the possibility of either of them becoming l'Cie frightened her, however knowing in the end that someone had to, and that if they were chosen, that they would become a part of something larger, something more important than themselves. But in that moment, when actually faced with the reality of it, Fang couldn't see the bigger picture any longer; all she could see was Vanille, and the fact that she had been taken from her.

"Fang, no; don't—you can't speak out against the fal'Cie," Nymira begged as she looked up at her, knowing nothing good could ever come from such a challenge. "It was… it was an _honor_ that she was chosen; I know that, but…"

"Screw honor, she's not goin' at this alone; I'm not letting her!" Fang responded, not much caring who else in the damn village heard her sacrilege. Maybe they were supposed to rejoice in l'Cie being chosen, but no one really did; at the end of the day, if it was someone that they loved, they all cried for their loss behind closed doors. Fang just didn't much care what side of the door she was on right now; she had more important things to worry about than her image. "They're either letting me do this with her or I'm getting her the hell out of there; I don't bloody care which option at this point, but they ain't taking her from me!"

Nymira's hand pressed to her lips as she tried to stifle another sob, her watery eyes looking up at Fang as she tried to rationalize with her, despite the look in her eyes begging Fang to fix this, as she knew she personally could not. "Fang, they could— they could kill you… for interrupting the ceremony, for trying to take one of their chosen from them…"

"They can try," Fang responded, not at all phased by that imminent threat, when she knew that logically such a thing should terrify her. In that moment though, nothing else mattered save Vanille; everything else was just background noise. "I'll fuckin' slaughter them all _and_ the damn fal'Cie, if it means keepin' her safe. They can't have her; not if they don't take me too. Either way, I'm protecting her."

Nymira swallowed hard, fearful for her, yet eventually nodded her consent for Fang to risk everything for her daughter. In the end, they both knew it was the only option anyway; there was no way Fang would ever stay home and just _accept_ that something like this was happening. Fate, destiny… all that bloody rubbish; it didn't own them. They were their own people, and they would make their own damn choices in this world.

"Fang," Nymira pleaded one last time as the Huntress moved, intent on setting out right then. She was already a half day behind, after all; she couldn't waste time here. Nymira's hand was on her arm, and she squeezed it in gratitude as the other woman turned to face her. "If… if they won't have you," she began softly, so only the brunette could hear, "if you have to run… don't come back here. Don't send word to me; it's too great a risk. Just please… _please_ take care of my daughter. That's all I ask; that's all that matters."

It struck Fang then the finality of all this; that whether she should succeed or fail, that Nymira knew that she would never see either of them again. However this played out, whether she and Vanille became l'Cie or they ran… this truly was the end of the road. They would either succeed and become eternal crystal, fail and become cie'th, or run and have to live the rest of the rest of their lives in hiding from the fal'Cie they defied; but either way, there was no coming back. She would most likely never see Nymira, or Oerba ever again.

The thought nearly made her legs collapse from under her.

But she had to be strong; she had to be strong for Vanille, for Nymira, for herself. At the end of the day, no one else could do this – no one else ever _would_ – and Fang would be damned if she just sat back and allowed the fal'Cie to rip the love of her life away from her. That wasn't _his_ choice to make, no matter what her people believed.

The fal'Cie did not own them, and no matter how this played out, at the end of the day Fang was damn certain that she was going to show him that. Because Vanille was her heart, her everything, and something like that wasn't something someone could just take from her.

Not now, not ever.

 **TBC…**


End file.
